Doohee Cho met Jen Kosakowski in their Bayonne, New Jersey kindergarten class. The families were close. Kosakowski’s father would stop in every morning on his way to work at a convenience store owned by Cho’s parents. The kindergarten classmates also went to high school together, then to college at Rutgers - New Brunswick. Kosakowski remembered that even when she moved to California to pursue a PhD, Cho flew out to visit her.

“It was just always amazing to me because people just come in and out of your life for whatever reason,” Kosakowski said. “Doohee was one of those people that I never lost contact with.”

She said Cho was “fiercely intelligent,” someone who “always had that roguish twinkle in his eye.” He made friends everywhere, even waiting in line at restaurants.

Two years ago, Kosakowski had moved back east, and Cho was working at General Electric as a vice president for asset finance. They met at a wine bar in Manhattan, near his apartment in the West Village. He ordered a $75 bottle of wine, and “he just kind of opened up,” she said. “It turns out that we had kind of been in love with each other since we were 18.”

When they told their parents, and then their friends from elementary and high school, the reactions were unanimous: “Oh God, finally,” Kosakowski’s mother said. They were planning to marry next year.