Love: Lauren Ende & Daniel Schwartz

In January 2009, Daniel and Lauren were invited by mutual friend David to watch the Eagles game at his place.

Lauren, who grew up in Jericho, N.Y., met David at a party years ago when she was an undergrad at Columbia University. They had lost touch until 2008, when she began her residency in pathology and laboratory medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where David is a fellow in gastroenterology.

Daniel has known David for about five years. When Daniel was a resident at Mount Sinai Hospital, David was one of his students. Daniel is also at Penn, where he is a cardiology fellow studying the link between diabetes and heart disease.

The night of the Eagles playoff game, about half a dozen people had gathered in David's apartment, but Lauren was mostly paying attention to Daniel.

He was funny - Daniel's story about being a Facebook Johnny-come-lately really cracked her up. He also was cute, bald, and Jewish. There was just one more thing Lauren needed to know.

Even though Lauren was sitting right next to David, she sent him a text, for discretion's sake: "Is he single?"

"Yes," David texted back.

Lauren's thumbs typed furiously: "When I leave, you should give him my number."

Daniel had found Lauren interesting, too. Mr. New-to-Facebook did not know how to text back then, so three days after the party, Daniel gave Lauren a phone call. It went well, and they wanted to get together right away. But not only did they both have tough work schedules, Daniel, who is the son of U.S. Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz, was going to the inauguration of Barack Obama.

A date was finally squeezed in about a week later - a Monday night. "It was a better date than I had been on in a long time, and I was curious about the second date," Daniel remembered.

For the first three months, Lauren and Daniel never saw a movie - they had way too much to talk about to spend two hours in silence.

They talked about their upbringing. "Family is important to both of us," Daniel said.

"We talked about television - I made him watch every show on the planet. And we tried a lot of new restaurants," Lauren said.

They never talked politics.

He was thrilled when she bought tickets for Philly Beer Week. "She's definitely a little goofy, but mix that with being very smart and serious," Daniel said. "She makes me less serious."

Neither had ever seriously dated anyone before, but by March 2009, Daniel, who is now 34, and Lauren, 28, knew they didn't ever want to date anyone else.

One weekend a year later, in late March 2010, Lauren and Daniel took a trip to New York for the wedding of their friends Shirley and Ryan. At the rehearsal dinner, several people teased them that they would be next. Daniel changed the subject.

The morning of the wedding, Daniel said they should go out for bagels.

"He seemed totally normal, except that he didn't finish his coffee," Lauren said.

Daniel then wanted to go to a museum. The weather was dreary, and Lauren didn't really feel like it, but Daniel very much wanted to go, so she agreed to make him happy. They set out on foot, and when they reached Central Park, Daniel suggested they walk through it.

He stopped at the reservoir and faced her.

"You know what would be a lot of fun?" Daniel asked. "If you wore this tonight."

Daniel was holding an engagement ring.

Even though a lot of their conversations lately had been about marriage, she was caught off-guard.

"Really?" she kept asking. "Really?"

Yes, Daniel assured her. Then Lauren got quiet.

"You didn't answer," Daniel said.

"That's because you didn't ask me anything!" Lauren teased him.

So, Daniel popped the question. She said yes. The two jumped up and down together, and then got a glass of champagne at the nearby Mark Hotel.

The maitre d' approached them. "You two look obnoxiously happy," he said.

"We are!" Daniel told him. "We just got engaged!" Dessert was on the house.

The couple, who now live in Philadelphia's Graduate Hospital neighborhood, were married before 300 guests at Loews Hotel in Philadelphia by Rabbi Adam Zeff of the Germantown Jewish Centre and Rabbi Leonard Gordon, formerly of the Germantown Jewish Centre, who now works near Boston.

Daniel was escorted down the aisle by his mother, the congresswoman, and his father, David, a cardiologist at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. Lauren was escorted by her parents, Roberta, an elementary schoolteacher in Queens, and Ellis, comanaging partner of the accounting firm Raich Ende Malter & Co.

The couple had taken dance lessons, so when the band started playing "It Had to Be You," "we showed off a little bit," Lauren said. They glided and twirled around the entire dance floor, and at the end, Daniel dipped the bride.

With wooden clothespins and googly eyes, Lauren crafted tiny versions of herself and Daniel, dressed as a bride and groom, to top the cake.

Lauren's friend, Liz, wrote new, tongue-in-cheek lyrics to Madonna's "Material Girl," letting Daniel know that Lauren would always want the best things in life. The song was performed by Liz and the other bridesmaids at the rehearsal dinner, much to everyone's delight.

For most of the ceremony, Lauren and Daniel stood in front with their parents, facing the rabbis with their backs to the guests. But toward the end, Rabbi Gordon asked them to turn around and look at everyone who had come to support them. "It was pretty amazing to see all the people who were there, and everyone looked really happy," Lauren said. It was Daniel's favorite moment, too.

A bargain: Lauren sewed makeup bags as gifts for her bridesmaids.

The splurge: Dance lessons at Society Hill Dance Academy.

The getaway

The couple spent eight days in Belize, four on the beach and four in the jungle.

Officiants
Rabbi Leonard Gordon, formerly of Germantown Jewish Centre in Mount Airy, and Rabbi Adam Zeff, of the Germantown Jewish Centre

Venue
Loews Hotel in Philadelphia, with assistance from David Hall

Catering
Loews Hotel

Photography
Susan Beard, Philadelphia

Videography
Unique Video Concepts, Lafayette Hill

Music
Sid Miller Dance Band, Philadelphia

Flowers
Table Art, Wayne

Dress
Paloma Blanca, from the Bridal Garden in Marlton

Invitations
Robin Cohen at Robin's Writes & Invites, Jericho, N.Y.

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