Four months after Molly Abrams and Marcus Moss started dating in 2015, they broke up.
Introduced by mutual friends, Mr. Moss, 35, said he met the description of the type of guy Ms. Abrams had said she was looking for. “Jewish, tall, family oriented, funny, red hair, big dog, name that starts with an M — basically me,” he said.
But the two ultimately decided that the distance between them back then — she was living in Austin, Texas, and he in Memphis — made a relationship untenable. Ms. Abrams said the decision left her “heartbroken” and that, aside from him sending her a few Instagram posts, there “wasn’t much communication” after the split.
Then, in 2018, she saw a sign that sparked them to reconnect.
That fall, Ms. Abrams, 32, noticed that the letter board sign outside of El Arroyo, a restaurant in Austin known for featuring witty phrases on its sign, read “I hope my ex’s dog is doing well.” She took a photograph and posted it on Instagram.
Mr. Moss, 35, saw it and sent her a direct message on the app in response. It read, “He’s doing great. But, how are you?” The message, he added, “was enough for us to reopen a dialogue and once we started talking again, we quickly realized there was still a deep connection between us.”
They then began a year of long-distance dating, which culminated with Ms. Abrams moving to Memphis in November 2019. She arrived to find that Mr. Moss had created his own sign, in the style of El Arroyo, and put it in his front yard. “Thanks, El Arroyo. She posted your sign and it led her to mine. Welcome home, Molly,” it read. (Their reunion was later covered by Spectrum News Austin.)
Ms. Abrams, who grew up in Dallas, has a bachelor’s degree in health promotion and a master’s degree in health behavior and health education from the University of Texas at Austin. She works as a senior customer success manager at PandaDoc, a software company.
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A native of Memphis, Mr. Moss has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Kansas and a law degree from the Mississippi College School of Law. He works as the marketing director for the Interstate Blood Bank, a group of blood donation centers operated by Grifols, a global health care company.
Mr. Moss’s initial plan to propose to Ms. Abrams in front of El Arroyo’s sign was thwarted by the pandemic. Instead, he proposed in July 2020, when the couple, along with Ms. Abrams’s parents, went to his parents’ house for a Shabbat dinner.
“My decision to propose when I did was purely organic,” Mr. Moss said. But it was not spontaneous, because he had prepared a sign for the occasion, which he stationed in his parents’ backyard. It read, “Molly, will you marry me?”
On Nov. 14, the couple were wed in Memphis, where they live, at Baron Hirsch Congregation, the synagogue Mr. Moss grew up attending. Rabbi Benjamin Lehrfield, formerly of Baron Hirsch and now the rabbi at the Riverdale Minyan in the Bronx, officiated before 260 guests, all but two of whom were fully vaccinated.
Following the ceremony, the couple and their guests made their way to a reception held at the synagogue’s social hall, which is named in memory of Mr. Moss’s late aunt Marsi Joan Moss, whom he is also named after.
A black-tie affair included a tequila shot toast with custom glasses emblazoned with “L’chaim from the Mosses,” a book featuring photos of El Arroyo’s sign for guests to inscribe, an Elvis impersonator, and a fake mirrored cake designed to look like a disco ball.
“Visually, the wedding was a little more fun,” said Ms. Abrams, who added that the couple didn’t want a “typical wedding.”
Mr. Moss also had a special kipa made for the occasion. “Marcus has a man bun so he actually cut a half circle out of a leather kipa to make it fit,” Ms. Abrams said.
And, of course, there was a sign that recalled El Arroyo’s as part of the décor. It read, “Molly and Marcus. 11-14-21. #MOSSELTOV.”
