Megan Jericha Lerchenmuller was more than a little annoyed after first meeting Glenn Kyle Williams Josey in May 2018 at the Glasshouse construction site, an event space on 12th Avenue off the West Side Freeway in New York.
“This is Megan, she just joined our team,” Mr. Joshi, 46, the project’s architect, a Glasshouse partner, recalled before beginning a meeting in a makeshift office space.
Mr. Josey then blurted out, “Oh, you’re here to take meeting notes,” under the impression that the partner would bring someone along for the task.
Mrs. Lerchenmiller just glared at him. He had actually been hired by Glasshouse a week earlier as a business strategy consultant.
“I’m going to get this information out,” he thought, realizing that they would have to work together “a bunch” over the next three years.
Mr. Josey, embarrassed by his case, ended up taking notes in addition to conducting the meeting. At the time he was working for Kossar + Garry Architects.
Ms. Lerchenmuller, 39, is now the chief operating officer of Elm by Atelier Collective, an event space in SoHo, on which she collaborated with Mr. Josey. He has a BA in economics from Northwestern and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Three weeks after their meeting they had a more friendly exchange when they joined the Glasshouse partner for drinks at the now-closed Clyde Frazier’s Wine and Dine bar, which was across the street in Manhattan’s Midtown West neighborhood.
“I found her very nice, very smart and very clever,” said Mr. Josey, “and beautiful.”
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He has a degree in architecture from the University of Oklahoma and is now the owner of Glenn Josey Architecture. Mr. Josey, who became a Quaker in 2013, is a member of the Fifteenth Street Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in New York and the trustees’ clerk for the New York Quarterly Meeting.
Once Covid hit in 2020, team meetings went virtual and drinks with colleagues fell by the wayside.
In June 2021, in preparation for the opening of the Glasshouse in September, Mr. Josey visited the site daily and frequently checked to see if Ms. Lerchenmuller was there. As they chatted, he suggested they go for drinks again.
At the time, however, Ms. Lerchenmuller was on a juice cleanse.
“When did it end?” he asked, to which she replied of course, “whenever we have drinks.”
That Friday, the pair had drinks at Ink 48, a bar across the street from the Glasshouse, followed a few hours later by dinner at a Mexican restaurant owned by one of his childhood friends from Riverdale, Bronx. He grew up in Laguna Beach, California.
At 1 a.m., he drove her home on the Upper West Side and after two goodnight hugs headed to his place in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
Still, laughing, they call these seven hours together “a date without a date.”
Their first real date, albeit with her best friend, was a few days later for drinks in the VIP lounge at the Glasshouse after she had just finished a photo shoot. They had a first kiss when they entered the south corridor.
The next day he left for a 10-day trip to visit friends in Detroit and rented a car to celebrate a friend’s 40th birthday in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. He spoke on speakerphone with Mr. Josey the whole way, which included a torrential downpour.
On July 4, he left his annual family barbecue early in Yeadon, Pa., to pick her up at LaGuardia Airport.
“I got a family stick,” she said, but she got their stamp of approval once she mentioned she belonged to Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Members also include his mother, sister, two cousins and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“You should drive it,” his sister and a cousin recalled them saying. He prepared a picnic basket for Mrs. Lerchenmuller, including “Uncle Cal’s” famous ribs.
“We’ve been together ever since,” she said.
In August, he embarked on a “six-month Meghan tour,” during which he met his family and friends and took charge of the playlist during long car rides.
“He stopped listening to new music in the early 2000s,” she said, introducing Mr. Josey, who was into hip-hop and R&B, to singers like Frank Ocean.
Ms. Lerchenmuller became a fan of his cooking, especially the baked truffle chicken and garlic rice. That fall she moved into her apartment on the Upper West Side.
In October, when they flew to California for her friend’s wedding, he told her mother and grandmother that he was marrying her.
On March 18, 2022, after taking her to the Guggenheim Museum, he proposed at her favorite bar — Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel. While the pianist was playing Stevie Wonder’s “Ribbon in the Sky,” he knelt down.
On April 27, the two were married in a Quaker union ceremony, with about 200 guests, at the Fifteenth Street Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.
Later at the Meetinghouse they enjoyed potluck dishes such as goat curry and her mother’s lasagna and cupcakes. Leftovers went to Friends homeless shelter and community dinner.
On May 4, on the Scotts Head cliff in Dominica, surrounded by rum, coconut drinks and tropical flora, they exchanged vows before 55 guests at Jungle Bay, a resort in Soufriere, Dominica.
“Our celebrations were about love, family and giving back to the community,” he said.