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Neither rain, nor snow nor a misaddressed Christmas card could keep Joe Russo IV from the woman he was certain would be his wife.
The first day his parents took him skiing as a 4-year-old, he was determined to master the sport: He fell, readjusted, went back up the mountain, fell, readjusted, went back up the mountain and kept going until he finally had it.
"He really doesn't give up," said his mother, Sue Russo. He did the same with golf until he was a 9 handicap at his peak. He did the same with academics. And he did the same with love.
Perseverance was a useful attribute in 2009, when he lost his job with a California investment firm in the financial downturn. The following summer, he sought refuge with his parents at their summer house at the Oyster Harbors Club in Osterville, on Cape Cod.
Job prospects failed to turn up, summer turned to fall, and one day, his mother mentioned that friends had invited them to a Boston College tailgate party, and that his father, Joseph Russo III, could not go.
Continue reading the main storyWith a five-day growth of beard, tendrils escaping from a cap barely covering an overgrown mane, bluejeans and a well-worn North Face jacket, he hitched a ride to the party with friends. There he encountered white linens, crystal glassware and men in suit jackets. "I was immediately embarrassed," he said.
Hiding beneath the unkempt exterior was a man with an M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina — an economics graduate from Trinity College in Hartford who has "an unwavering, rock-solid integrity, is very smart and is a very hard worker," said a friend from graduate school, Scott Zimmerly.
Mr. Russo hovered outside t he crowd, but without a car of his own in which to hide, he was trapped.
At the tailgate party was Elise Morrissey, a dark-eyed, silken-haired Boston College graduate. Her parents, Bob and Alyce Morrissey, who knew the Russos from Oyster Harbors, were the hosts.
Beauty is Ms. Morrissey's business. She began her career with the interior designer Mariette Himes Gomez, and now owns her own firm, Morrissey Saypol Interiors, where she has managed to flourish in the competitive world of New York design. She also had spent her summers at Oyster Harbors. And she couldn't help noticing Mr. Russo.
"He was leaning up against the edge of a garage, trying t o be inconspicuous, but of course he stood out," Ms. Morrissey said. "I thought he looked cool." She walked over to him.
Mr. Russo was moved by Ms. Morrissey's kindness.
"I came away with the thought of 'Hey, we've been in the same small town in the summer for the past 15 years and I've never met you, never saw you in the clubhouse or the tennis courts or the bars everybody goes to,''' he said. "'Where have you been?'"
Her compassion that day was characteristic: She had saved hatchlings fallen from their nests in thunderstorms, invited her nieces and nephews on special occasions to a night just for each of them in New York and "lived everyday full of happiness," said her sister, Katie Morrissey.
She also understood early on what would sustain her through life: a career about which she was passionate, a walkable city and a location near enough to her family in Massachusetts to allow her to return whenever she wanted.
"She's different, she's artsy," her mother said. "The boyfriends she had were always from Paris and Rome and South Afr ica."
Her most potent love affair had been with New York. After living briefly in Paris and Florence, Italy, she moved to Manhattan. But New York had been hit by the recession, too, and Ms. Morrissey lost her job. After several months of figuring out her next steps, she opened her firm in 2010 with a former colleague, Elizabeth Brush Saypol. Business blossomed.
Back in California, Mr. Russo landed a job. A year passed, and as summer approached he thought about the annual Fourth of July party at Oyster Harbors, and he thought about Ms. Morrissey. He traveled to the Cape, but this time he went prepared, with a haircut, a tan, linen pants and a collared shirt. Ms. Morrissey did not recognize him.
"I'd never seen him without a hat on, or cleanshaven," she said. "His skin glowed."
That encounter was just a moment, but Mr. Russo was encouraged. "I could tell this was different," said his brother, Charles. "There was a recognition that it could be something special."
He returned to California, and as the holidays approached, he decided to send a card to Ms. Morrissey. After several torn-up attempts, witnessed by his brother, he wrote a message and mailed it to Ms. Morrissey's parents' house in Massachusetts. But he mistakenly used the spelling of the mother's name, Alyce (which is pronounced AH-lease, similar to her daughter's EH-lease).
During the holidays, the card made its way to her parents' cold-weather home in North Palm Beach, Fla. Ms. Morrissey's father, Bob Morrissey, was sitting at the kitchen counter, opening the cards. He got to Mr. Russo's card, pulled it out of the envelope and recalled reading: "Dear Alyce: Will you be in Osterville for Christmas? If so, I'd like to get together for a drink." Mr. Morrissey was taken aback.
"I only know one Joe Russo," he recalled thinking, referring to the elder Mr. Russo, a golf buddy from Oyster Harbors. "What's he doing wanting to see my wife?"
Then he turned the envelope over. Most of the holiday cards the couple received were addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. Ro bert Morrissey." This one was addressed only to Alyce Morrissey. He took a deep breath.
"Honey?" he called to his wife. Then, "Will you tell me what is going on with you and Joe Russo?"
Mrs. Morrissey blanched and said, "What are you talking about?" She walked over to her wary husband, read the card twice and looked bewildered. After a few awkward moments, she recalled saying, "Oh, of course. This must be young Joe."
They shared a laugh.
"For a few moments there, it was a little dicey," Mr. Morris sey said.
The card was forwarded to their daughter in New York. It arrived in January, long after Mr. Russo had returned to California. Although she had no interest in a long-distance relationship and had tossed the card into the trash soon after receiving it, Ms. Morrissey, minding her manners, did email Mr. Russo to thank him. They began to email twice a month or so, sharing stories and photos of places they had been.
"I would say to him," she said, " 'If you are ever in New York, let me know,' and I would say silently to myself, 'otherwise, there's no need for us to correspond.'"
Mr. Russo tried to close the gap between them. He told Ms. Morrissey he would be at the Oyster Harbors Fourth of July party, and they made plans to see each other. They ate at local restaurants, went to bars, took walks. It was then that Mr. Russo knew.
"I said to myself, 'I think I'm going to love you,'" he said. "But I couldn't say it to her."
Although Ms. Morrissey was warming to Mr. Russo, she was exercising caution. One evening while they were dining out, an insect landed on Mr. Russo's sleeve. It began to crawl upward toward his face. Facing a dating conundrum, Ms. Morrissey asked herself: "What do I do? If I swipe it off myself, it's contact and that means I care about him. And if I don't do anything and it goes down his shirt, that's pretty awful."
Her decision fell to words: "You have a bug on your shoulder," she said. She was still on the fence about him.
But after a week of being together, Ms. Morrissey decided she liked him and wanted to be honest.
"I told him that if I didn't see him in New York by Oct. 1, I didn't want to have anything to do with him." She also refused to go to California to visit. "I wanted him to come to New York."
Mr. Russo, on a tightrope between coasts, became a regular at Kennedy Airport for several months. In 2014 he moved to New York and took a job in real estate investment management with Zurich Alternative Asset Management. Ms. Morrissey welcomed him with open arms. His perseverance had won out.
She liked that he was gentle and calm, but a romantic who held doors for her and always called when he said he would. "It was just really easy," she said, "and I knew that I could count o n him."
He liked that they both had so much in common: close families, a respect for tradition, a sense of humor. "She's a beautiful person," he said.
The couple dined at Tavern on the Green and Brasserie Cognac East on Lexington Avenue, walked the sidewalks of the city and traveled to Virgin Gorda in the Caribbean and Montreal, and finally to California, now that Mr. Russo was safely ensconced in New York.
Several months later, Mr. Russo went to Boston to ask Ms. Morrissey's father for his permission to marry his daughter.
On De c. 5, the Rev. Leo Shea, a Maryknoll missionary who was a Boston College classmate of the bride's father, officiated at a nuptial mass at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer on Lexington Avenue. Antique acoustic tiles muffled the sirens and frequent honks of fire trucks outside the church's doors as Father Shea said, "This all began when Joe's heart got the courage to send the Christmas card."
Minutes later, the groom, 39, emerged from the church with his bride, 40, his smile competing with the glow of holiday lights on the street.
"We both waited a long time, and I'm sure our parents did, too," Mr. Russo said. "I'm just so happy with the way it happened."
Slowly and steadily.
"He knew what he was looking for, that's for sure," Sue Russo said. "He wasn't going to have anybody. He was willing to wait, just like he was willing to wait for everything he's ever done."
Read more: Gabrielle Karol and Benjamin Jacobs: After Years of Breakup Regret, He Wins Back the One
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Correction: December 27, 2015A report in the Vows column last Sunday, about the marriage of Elise Morrissey and Joe Russo IV, incorrectly characterized the wedding site as a cathedral. It is a church.
