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In October 2022, Eric Massak was stuck in a shipping container in Seattle. He had started to feel “awful” while visiting friends in the Pacific Northwest, crashing on their couches and going to concerts. Then his cautionary Covid-19 test turned “the brightest red you’ve ever seen.” He opted to isolate in an Airbnb — a tiny house made from a repurposed shipping container — for the days until his return flight to Boston. He was sad, alone, and bored. Then, Sarah Anders called. Sarah, who lives in Jamaica Plain, had been on only a few dates with Eric at the time, but sympathized with his predicament. She remembers offering: “I don’t know if this is weird, but may I call you later and check in?” Their first date had been just weeks before: a Sept. 8th pilgrimage to Powder House Square to see its newly revamped traffic circle. Sarah is chief of staff for the City of Boston’s Streets Cabinet and hadn’t been able to attend a site visit earlier that week; Eric, a business analyst living in Somerville, offered to accompany her, followed by drinks at Saloon. They had matched on Hinge that August, where they bonded over music. Eric’s opening line was a response to a photo of Sarah at karaoke. (She was singing “Believe” by Cher.) They attended their first concert together on their fourth date. It was Carly Rae Jepsen at Roadrunner, and Eric joked he might “get discovered like Courtney Cox in the ‘Dancing in the Dark’ video.” Sarah’s older sister, Rebecca, who also attended, approved of this funny, fun, new guy: “She was a fan,” Sarah says. For the four October days that he quarantined in Seattle, Eric and Sarah spent hours on FaceTime and the phone. She’d chat from her kitchen table after work, while Eric waited out the remaining days of his “vacation.” Their first four dates had been fun — they kissed on the second — but a deeper connection began to emerge from some-3,000 miles away. “He was just stuck there and his trip was kind of ruined. He was bummed, but he was still hilarious,” remembers Sarah. “He had this positive vibe, and we had all this time [then] to get closer and closer. And after that, a switch just flipped for me. I felt like, ‘My god, I could really be in love with this person.’” Eric agrees it was a turning point, “a bright spot on a potentially otherwise disastrous trip.” He returned to Boston with tickets for a Billy Bragg concert and the intention of getting more serious with Sarah. “I was like, ‘This person clearly cares, and I care,’” he says. The new relationship was put to the test when Sarah attended her first Holiday — “with a capital H,” he clarifies, adding that 2025 will be its 20th iteration — a long-standing tradition that Eric, who grew up in Lunenburg, hosts for his friends. During the daylong (or sometimes days long) party, Eric and guests celebrate a bunch of holidays together—they do an Easter egg hunt, have a Thanksgiving feast, sing carols and exchange gifts, for example. When he and Sarah became “exclusive” that fall, he invited her to join. “The fact that he’d been doing that for his friends since he was in high school made me feel he was a really interesting person who values his relationships. I was very drawn to that,” Sarah explains. That November, she joined 14 of Eric’s friends at a rented cabin in Vermont. The weekend-long festivities included a high-stakes pre-feast speech that Sarah successfully pulled off (everyone who attends gives a speech). By the weekend’s end, Sarah, Eric, and one friend/straggler who needed a ride to the airport remained for a final night. What could have been a “romantic evening” for the new couple became a low-key hangout for three featuring cheeseburgers in a hot tub under the stars. Eric says Sarah’s up-for-anything, “go-getter” attitude — something he says they share — drew him to her, as did her genuine, curious nature. “She has a lot of questions, which I appreciate,” says Eric. “I’m not as good about asking questions, but I am pretty good at having answers.” Sarah found this to be true. Early in the relationship, she had sent him stories she’d written after receiving an aplastic anemia diagnosis and a bone marrow transplant in 2016. The treatment and care period was long, perilous, and lonely. When she asked his thoughts of her experiences, he replied: “I learned more about you, and I liked what I learned.” The relationship weathered a getaway for two in a tiny house with a composting toilet and no heat in rural Vermont, and meeting families over the (lower case h) holidays. They maintained what they jokingly call “the ultimate Boston long-distance relationship” — from her place in Jamaica Plain to his in Somerville — until they moved in together in July 2023. Eric proposed in November 2024 atop Peters Hill at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain. In September, he had approached her parents, who live in Brookline, with his intentions to propose and a request, “Can I join your family? Sarah, now 36, and Eric, 34, wed on Sept. 13 at the Crystal Ballroom in Somerville. The couple, who now live in Jamaica Plain, recreated moments from their first date during a first look before the ceremony. Their photographer, Sue Lynch, accompanied them to the Burren (where the couple had initially met) to Saloon (which opened their doors early for the newlyweds), and the traffic circle at Power House Square. Rebecca officiated as the couple exchanged vows they had written in front of their 137 guests, under a flower-embellished chuppah constructed by Sarah’s mother, a former architect. Sarah, who writes poetry, composed her vows in prose and abstract verse, promising her commitment to growing. In the lead-up to the big day, Eric took a chance and emailed five of his favorite artists, asking for their advice on marriage. For his vows, he cited British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg. “I did not get a response from almost anyone, but Billy Bragg did say, ‘I have found that separate bathrooms help.’” Read more from The Big Day, The Boston Globe’s new weddings column.
