Their love thrived even under the demands of a medical resident's grueling schedule

Boston Globe

4 days ago

Their love thrived even under the demands of a medical resident's grueling schedule
Could a medical resident with a grueling schedule find time for love?
During the fall of 2023, Grant Schleifer was booked and busy.
Almost every morning, he'd bike 12 miles from his home in Newton Center
to Charlestown. He'd work a long shift at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, where he was in the midst of his second year medical residency. Then he'd bike 12 miles back home. When he wasn't working, he was studying, sleeping, or occasionally, swiping on Tinder— even though his schedule made meeting up in person a near impossible task.
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So when he realized he had an unplanned 'hour or two' window on a Friday night, he jumped on it.
That crisp October evening, he met up with Nathan Alexander, who at the time lived in Porter Square. When they first matched on Tinder in September, Grant explained it might be a while before they could meet up.
The couple invited close family and friends to gather at the Ether Monument in the Boston Public Garden for a 6 p.m. ceremony. They remember the park being quiet, and besides a few onlookers, the ceremony maintained its intimacy.
Jeff Smith
They chose
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Nathan had wondered if their backgrounds would mesh. He is a manager for the cannabis dispensary
Meanwhile Grant's 'run 27 marathons in 10 different countries,' says Nathan. 'I [had] never traveled out of the country before we met.'
Nathan's close friend and former roommate Aaron Kaplowitz officiated the wedding ceremony. 'He was the first person I ever told about Grant,' says Nathan. 'After the date, I was like, 'Wow, I just met this amazing guy. I've got to lock this down.'' Pictured, Grant, Aaron, and Nathan with Grant's niece, Gabrielle, who served as the ring bearer during the ceremony.
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Grant was raised in the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond, the middle of three brothers. Their mother had quadriplegia, but that didn't deter family adventures. 'We'd pack the wheelchair in the back of the van and go to Florida or Vegas and all over the country,' Grant says. She passed away in 2015; her condition inspired his decision to pursue medicine, specifically rehabilitation and working with patients with spinal cord injuries.
When backbar got too noisy, they continued to converse as they
walked Union Square and discovered a
somber shared life experience. Grant shared that he had lost his father, too, in 2018, just after he had moved to the area to attend Harvard Medical School. Nathan, who lost his father in 1999, helped Grant feel comfortable opening up.
While both partners praised the other for providing support and comfort through food and flexibility, Nathan says gratitude is another layer that keeps the relationship strong. 'Grant's really assuring in saying how he feels and how he appreciates me,' says Nathan. '[He's] constantly saying 'thank you,' and 'Wow, this is amazing.' I really appreciate it.'
Jeff Smith
'I felt like nobody else around me had gone through a similar thing,' says Grant, 'for Nathan to have undergone pretty much the same experience made me feel a good connection towards him.'
Later that night, they shared a first kiss and parted ways, knowing, with Grant's schedule, it'd be a month before their second date. 'So I was just counting down the days until December,' says Nathan.
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When Grant's schedule lightened, he moved to Assembly Row in Somerville. He invited Nathan over for dinner on his first available evening.
The couple read the vows they had written off their phones during the ceremony. 'I went first and was extremely nervous and shaking,' says Nathan. 'I was speaking as quiet as a mouse and no one could hear me. But then at the end of the day, it wasn't for them, it was for Grant. And I got everything across that I wanted to say.'
Jeff Smith
Grant set out a candlelit dinner, with flickering tapers, and a sparkling city skyline that cast a glow in a dimly lit room— a meal that would become a tradition for them. He served salmon en papillote with a Tuscan red. The playlist was 'mostly '80s' and Madonna.
Nathan remembers being taken aback, but pleased with the romantic gesture. 'I was like, 'This is all I need in my life,'' he says. 'And then he just kept doing it.'
'By the end of January, I knew I was in love with him,' says Grant.
Candlelit dinners went on hiatus when Grant's schedule picked up that February — work weeks could be 80+ hours, and every four days, he worked a 28-hour shift.
During the celebration at Grill 23, the couple mingled with family and friends after Grant gave a champagne toast. 'We wanted everyone to have a good time and eat good food, and make it super relaxed and chill,' says Nathan. For dessert, there were macarons and 'huge chocolate chip cookies that everybody loved,' alongside saucers of milk for dipping.
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Nathan prepared nourishing meals — kale salads with pomegranate seeds and feta, gnocchi in roasted bell pepper sauce — packed in Pyrex with silverware and
L.A. Burdick chocolate for dessert. When time allowed, he'd join Grant in the MGH atrium, during the scant half-hour or so the doctor would be able to steal away for dinner.
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'I think I only missed one [of Grant's long shifts] because I had to close at work that night,' says Nathan.
In April, they visited friends in the English Cotswolds. In September, they hiked in the French Alps. They moved in together that month.
And on a January 2025 trip to Washington, D.C., Grant took a knee as they posed for a photo at the Jefferson Memorial.
'It took him about eight or nine seconds to realize that it wasn't a joke,' Grant says. But as the 10-second camera timer went off, he proposed.
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When asked in June if the candlelight dinners are still a tradition in the relationship, they replied: 'Yeah, we still do it to this day,' says Grant. 'There was one last night.' Pictured: Grant proposed at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., in January.
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'Nathan is so special, and so unique, I knew I could make that commitment to him.... I didn't feel like I needed to wait several years before making it official.'
On May 24, Nathan,
30, and Grant, 31, married in an early evening ceremony at the Boston Public Garden.
Before the wedding, Nathan and his family prepped vases with white roses and hydrangeas, purple bachelor buttons, and eucalyptus. His parents gifted the couple a portrait of the two, drawn with pastels, that they had commissioned.
Grant had a morning shift on their wedding day, during which he worked with patients with spinal cord injuries. It provided a moment before the ceremony to remember to his mother: 'They were the right people for me to be around,' he says.
The newlyweds (center) with their families at their Public Garden ceremony. After they wed, Nathan took Grant's last name. From left: Nathan's sister Kristen Bergner, and parents, Tracy and Jeff Smith; Grant and Nathan Schleifer; Grant's brother-in-law and sister, Leo and Jamie Hernandez, and their daughter, Gabrielle.
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Around 6 p.m., Nathan's former roommate Aaron Kaplowitz officiated while their 35 guests formed a semi-circle at the Ether Monument, which stands in the northwest corner of the Public Garden. The statue is a dedication to the invention of anesthetic, a nod to Grant's medical background.
The grooms made good use of their existing wardrobes — suiting from Isaia, shoes by Tom Ford and Ferragamo. 'Luckily Nathan and I are the same size,' says Grant.
Afterwards, the group went to Grill 23, where the newlyweds had booked a private room for steaks, lobster rolls, and champagne. Their favorite songs hummed in the background — Judy, Shania, Dolly, et al. — and guests received L.A. Burdick's dark chocolate mice with navy ribbons featuring Nathan and Grant's names.
Following the wedding, the couple — pictured with family and friends who attended their reception at Grill 23 — spent their two-week honeymoon touring Italy, starting in Venice. 'Then we went to Florence and Pisa, Siena and Montaione, and then this place in the Chianti Valley, and then finished up in Rome."
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The afterparty was at
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And revelry carried on at the Liberty Hotel — even after the grooms had gone home around midnight.
'People came from Nebraska, and Florida, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma,' says Grant. 'We had people who probably never had any reason to meet each other, but they enjoyed each other so much that they went out afterwards to hang out some more.'
Read more from
, The Boston Globe's new weddings column.
Rachel Kim Raczka is a writer and editor in Boston. She can be reached at