September 28, 2022

Without Knowing It, Opening the Door to Romance

Jobina Fortson and Bradley Evans met when he knocked on her dorm-room door at Howard University looking to use her printer. Eleven years later, they married.

Bradley Akil Evans didn’t exactly make the best impression on Jobina Nancee Fortson when the two first met at their Howard University dormitory 11 years ago.

Ahead of an annual football game between Howard and Morehouse College, in September 2011, Mr. Evans and a fellow student had knocked on the door of Ms. Fortson’s dorm room to see if they could use her printer for their tickets to the game.

Though she obliged, she was annoyed because she was busy readying herself for the game. Her hair was wound up in hot rollers and her room strewn with clothes. “I really didn’t want strangers in my room,” said Ms. Fortson, who felt their request was “rude.” For the next year or so, she kept her distance from Mr. Evans.

But in May 2013 the two, both juniors by then, found themselves walking together after a party off campus. Their plucky conversation revealed much in common.

Both grew up in the suburbs — Ms. Fortson in Smoke Rise, Ga., northeast of Atlanta, and Mr. Evans in Liberty Township, Ohio, north of Cincinnati — and were raised by parents who valued education. Each also prioritized attending a historically Black college.

A connection between them was evident, especially when they discovered they would soon be heading to summer internships in New York City. After both had relocated and settled in, Mr. Evans invited Ms. Fortson to dinner. Their conversation, which began over Dominican food and then continued back at his apartment in the Inwood neighborhood, stretched to 4 a.m.

Several weeks and many dates later, they shared a first kiss on a West Village street corner. By the time they were back at Howard that fall, they were officially a couple. But soon after their graduation, in May 2014, their relationship hit bumpy ground.

Ms. Fortson, who earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism, took a job as a TV news reporter in Salisbury, Md., then relocated to Louisville, Ky., for another on-air reporting position. Mr. Evans, who received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, was hired at Goldman Sachs in New York, where he had interned. With him working traditional hours and her working weekends and often starting well before dawn, they had little time to connect.

Despite taking train, plane and bus rides to see one another, they split in 2015.

The two never entirely lost touch, though, and by 2016, they had gotten back together with the plan to live in the same city. Two years later, in 2018, Mr. Evans relocated to the Bay Area for a job at Google, where he is now a global compensation specialist. Ms. Fortson moved to the area around the same time and began freelancing at the ABC station in San Francisco, where she is now a full-time breaking news and traffic anchor.

In March 2020, the week that California locked down because of the pandemic, they moved in together. Ms. Fortson, now 30, broadcast from the couple’s primary bedroom, forcing Mr. Evans, also 30, to tiptoe around their home when she was on air. But “we never tired of each other,” he said.

Mr. Evans proposed in June 2021, surprising Ms. Fortson when he pulled out a ring at sunset after the couple had a picnic at Schoolhouse Beach in Bodega Bay, Calif. Some close friends who were in on his plan were hiding nearby to capture the moment in photos.

The couple were married Sept. 3 at the Chateau de Ninis, a French-inspired villa overlooking a panorama of vineyards, in Sonoma, Calif. Roberta Edge, Mr. Evans’s aunt and a deacon at the nondenominational Heritage Fellowship Church in Reston, Va., officiated after being designated a deputy marriage commissioner by San Francisco City and County for the occasion. Their 107 guests were required to provide a negative Covid test to attend.

For the reception that followed, the bride, who has reported on diversity in the wedding industry, and groom hired Black vendors, including chef Christina Alexis of the Pleasure Principle Dining Events, who prepared a Haitian-Caribbean-themed dinner that included jerk chicken, coconut milk kale and Juanito cakes, a sweet and spicy cornbread pancake. Later, the newlyweds and some of their guests headed to Steiners Tavern in downtown Sonoma for an after-party.

“Bradley is everything I ever wanted in a partner,” said Ms. Evans, who with her wedding dress wore sheer, elbow-length gloves with “Mrs. Evans” embroidered on one of them.

“It’s been quite a journey,” Mr. Evans said. “Jobina is loving, funny, and extremely genuine, and after all these years I can still find more reasons to love her.”

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