Stephanie Morris and Richard May

If love defies explanation, so does this: How do you wind up with an F on your homework assignment when the guy who copied his straight from you gets an A?

Stephanie Morris and Richard May couldn’t answer that question, and it happened to them back in 2004, when they were students at Virginia Tech in Blackburg, Va.

Homework wasn’t the only thing Morris got wrong. When May called to invite her to a party at his place, her mother saw right away that she liked him, but Morris blushed and said, “No way.” A few weeks later they were dating.

After graduation, they spent several years working in the Washington D.C. area and took five months off to backpack through Europe and North Africa. In 2010, they left the East Coast to make their home in Santa Monica, where her correct — and joyful — response to his proposal won her a diamond ring.

Morris, 27, is an account marketing coordinator at Allegro Creative in El Segundo. May, 28, is a program manager in the Office of Research at USC.

On Oct. 1 they gave the most important answer of their lives — “I do” — before 96 guests at Temescal Gateway Park in Pacific Palisades, where, in the shelter of a sycamore grove, officiant Mary Jean Valente of A Ceremony of the Heart pronounced them man and wife.

“We walked out to Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life,” said the bride, “and there was something magical about it.”

—Maxine Nunes
Custom Publishing Writer