Marjorie Lynne Kase’s first significant kiss with Daniel Paul Rubin felt noteworthy in all the right ways. But accompanying it was a thought she would keep secret for quite some time: that its setting — the San Francisco Elks Lodge No. 3, of which Rubin was a member — would make the perfect wedding venue.
Six years later, it was.
Kase, 49, and Rubin, 55, first connected on OkCupid in July 2018. Her profile mentioned tardigrades, a micro-animal also known as water bears, considered to be among the most resilient creatures known. He wrote a tardigrade-themed haiku in response. Though Kase, who lived in Oakland, Calif., had a firm policy of not dating anyone across the Bay Bridge, Rubin, a longtime San Francisco resident, was only visible to her because he was swiping while in Oakland.
“I’m not afraid of BART,” he told her, referencing the area’s public transit.
On their first date, in August 2018, at a bar in Oakland called the Rockridge Improvement Club, they learned they lived in the same San Francisco neighborhoods at the same time and had been to many of the same concerts and parties. And they shared a connection to Long Island, N.Y.: Rubin’s mother was from West Hempstead, while Kase grew up 10 miles away in Great Neck. He was raised in Los Angeles, where she had spent several years of her adult life.
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
“I’m not even sure there was a spark at first,” Kase said, “but I knew I wanted to get to know him better.”
Kase had more than the usual amount of dating anxiety, and Rubin’s calm demeanor immediately put her at ease. While Kase used to work in technology, at 37, her life was upended by a yearslong medical journey in which she was diagnosed with multiple immune disorders as well as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disease.
When to disclose the extent of her disability and that she was no longer working to potential love interests was always on her mind. With Rubin, it slipped out on date number two.
It didn’t faze him at all. At the time, he was regularly visiting Los Angeles to help care for his mother, who had cancer.
The Covid pandemic forced greater-than-normal caution, since Kase is immunocompromised. Then, that period became even more trying. Kase’s father was diagnosed with A.L.S., and Rubin’s mother dealt with cancer, a car accident and multiple Covid infections. They bounced back and forth between Long Island and Los Angeles, helping care for both parents, until each had died.
Kase holds a bachelor’s degree in American history from Oberlin College, along with a master’s degree in media studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Rubin has a bachelor’s degree in theater arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He works as a union stagehand for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees in San Francisco.
Seeing how seamlessly Kase and Rubin integrated into each other’s family during tragedy affirmed that they may be able to go the distance. Plus, Kase, who is Jewish, joked that she had always been drawn to people who were Jewish or Italian; in Rubin, she had both (his father was Jewish; his mother Italian).
Marriage had never been part of Rubin’s plan. “I had never let someone in, in that way,” he said.
In August 2025, he proposed in their backyard, right after they moved in together in Oakland. “I know there will never be a dull moment with Marjorie,” he said. “My brain will always be entertained by her.”
“And I think our neurospiciness integrates really well,” Kase said.
They were married July 11 by Molly Cahen, a comedian and Universal Life Church minister, before 136 guests at the Elks Lodge. Their ceremony, which had a sci-fi-meets-enchanted-forest aesthetic, began with a procession featuring the bride’s 21-year-old nephew carrying a stuffed pigeon with the rings affixed, and ended with a breaking of the glass and the Vulcan salute: “Live Long and Prosper.”
And going all-in on the 7/11 date, when leaving, guests were invited to select from beef jerky, candy or granola bars from a kiosk of items found at the convenience store chain.