“I’m literally a walking nerd billboard.” That’s how Jordan Alexander Wilson describes himself.
A few of the reasons he cited: There’s a tattoo of a ninja from a Japanese manga series that stretches across his shoulders and down to the small of his back. Four Nintendo video game characters are inked on his left shin, and a quote from a “Batman” comic covers his right rib cage.
But until a Friday afternoon in March 2022, Philicia Shamira Jean Saunders didn’t know this side of her co-worker at Bad Robot, the Los Angeles film and television production house of which the “Lost” co-creator J.J. Abrams is a founder.
That afternoon, she took Mr. Wilson to lunch as a thank you for remotely fixing her iPad ahead of an acting audition. It was two years into the pandemic, and because Mr. Wilson had just recently moved to Los Angeles to join Bad Robot’s technology support team, the two had only interacted through virtual office meetings.
Mr. Wilson showed up to lunch wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with an anime character that Ms. Saunders, an anime fan herself, recognized right away. Over noodles at Kotoya Ramen in West Los Angeles, Ms. Saunders — a human resources professional and an actor with two “Star Wars” films to her name — was surprised and delighted to discover how many other passions she shared with the former Apple Genius Bar technician.
They discovered a mutual love of anime, video games, cosplay and acting. He’s a voice actor who has been featured in commercials for Starbucks, Xfinity and the cognac maker Hennessy. She, in addition to playing the Resistance base fighter Tabala Zo in “The Force Awakens” and “The Rise of Skywalker,” has appeared in TV series including “9-1-1” on ABC and “How I Met Your Father,” on Hulu/FX. She has also performed onstage, currently appearing in “I, Daniel Blake” at the Fountain Theater in Los Angeles.
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“Finding a nerd was something I’ve always wanted in a partner,” Ms. Saunders said. “I was like, ‘This can’t be the person I’ve been looking for.’” She had a firm rule against office romances.
Mr. Wilson was equally captivated by the conversation’s effortless flow, and by his co-worker — she’s not only an actor, but a member of Black Swans Synchro, a squad of synchronized swimmers, all women of color, who will be the subject of an upcoming documentary, now in the early stages of development. He had glimpsed Ms. Saunders once in passing at the office, but sitting across from her at the noodle place, he found himself disarmed.
“I was like, ‘Wow, she is even more beautiful in person. This is not good,” said Mr. Wilson, who was similarly wary of dating a co-worker.
The duo quickly settled into an easy camaraderie, finding any excuse to connect at the office. He would bring her coffee. She would ask him an occasional tech question she already knew the answer to.
“I asked him to help me anyway, just so he could come by my desk,” she said. “He’s charismatic, he’s funny, I love his smile. When he’s happy and energetic, it’s very contagious.”
The cautious pas de deux continued for months, until Mr. Wilson took to heart the words etched on his torso about conquering limits (the full quote: “All men have limits. They learn what they are and learn not to exceed them. I ignore mine”). He asked Ms. Saunders on an official date, suggesting sushi, a favorite of hers, despite his own distaste for it. “I really wanted to impress her and show her that I like her enough to get outside my comfort zone,” he said.
That first date in May 2022 lasted six hours, and more followed. By the time their relationship grew serious, Ms. Saunders had moved on from Bad Robot, and is now a senior recruiter at the Plente Executive Search Group. Mr. Wilson followed suit, joining Scopely, a mobile-first video game developer where he works in executive technical support.
Ms. Saunders, 36, grew up in the Ladera Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, the daughter of a U.S.-born mother and a father who immigrated from Jamaica in his teens. She earned a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies from Princeton and an M.F.A. in acting from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mr. Wilson, 35, studied studio art at William Paterson University, and was raised in Englewood, N.J., by a single mother and maternal grandmother, with whom he shared an especially profound bond.
“Losing her was definitely the hardest thing in my life, and it’s affected me a lot,” he said of MaMa, as he called her, who died of cancer in 1998.
Ms. Saunders, he said, “feels like an embodiment of my grandmother’s love. From that first ramen date, I was like, ‘This is the safest I’ve felt in a long time. I want to feel this way every day.’”
Fantasy worlds permeate the couple’s life. Mr. Wilson’s drawings, mostly depicting anime scenes, line the walls of the apartment they moved into in September 2024 in the Westchester neighborhood of Los Angeles, that they share with their black cat, Baggie. They revel in trips to Disneyland and Universal Studios and take turns acting out a favorite scene from “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” in their most dramatic British accents. Together, they dress up in meticulously planned costumes for anime conventions and Renaissance Faires.
“It’s about not letting go of your inner child and just enjoying the things that make you happy,” Mr. Wilson said of the geeky pursuits that bind them. For him, they also have served as a guidepost.
One line delivered by Kamina, a character in the Japanese anime series “Gurren Lagann,” resonates deeply with him: “Believe in the you that believes in you.”
A little over a year after Mr. Wilson and Ms. Saunders started dating, he recalled those words as he prepared to propose at an Airbnb he had rented overlooking the hills of Tarzana, Calif. When she arrived — for a romantic private dinner, she’d been told — Mr. Wilson took her hand and led her up a set of stairs to a patio with two long rows of electric candles that curved into the shape of a heart. He had set up an iPad so their family members could watch over Zoom.
“I was so nervous, I didn’t even realize the iPad was pointing too low,” Mr. Wilson said with a laugh. “I have a video of it, but our heads are cut off.”
Ms. Saunders remembered experiencing her own jitters. “I kind of blacked out a little bit,” she said. “It was a lot happening at once.” Still, one memory stands out with perfect clarity: “It was an easy yes.”
For their engagement photo shoot, the pair embraced their devotion to cosplay, dressing as characters from the Netflix period drama “Bridgerton” — he as a lord in a blue velvet tailcoat and matching pantaloons, she as Queen Charlotte in a cream-colored lacy Victorian gown with a wide skirt.
Long enthralled with the elegance and etiquette of England’s Regency era, Ms. Saunders has watched all three seasons of the show, which is set between 1813 and 1827. But her admiration for the series goes beyond its grand 19th-century costumes.
“I would always watch movies like ‘Shakespeare in Love’ and I’d be like, ‘Oh my god, I would love to wear a nice corset and a beautiful big skirt, but someone that looks like me won’t be anywhere in that time period unless she’s a servant,” she said. “‘Bridgerton’ came out and it turned that stereotype on its head. You could see yourself in those spaces.”
In keeping with the “Bridgerton” theme, wedding invitations sealed with wax summoned 110 guests to celebrate the union of “Lady Saunders and Lord Wilson” on Nov. 10 at the Ebell Long Beach, a 1920s women’s club that’s been converted into an event space in Long Beach, Calif. Their mutual friend Anwar Ali, ordained by Rose Ministries for the occasion, officiated.
“Beyond the shared interests and inside jokes, there’s a pure, simple joy in just being together,” Mr. Ali said during the ceremony. “They turn ordinary moments into something special.”
“You drive me to be better every single day,” Mr. Wilson told Ms. Saunders during his vows. “You push me to be more gentle every day. You encourage me to reach higher than I thought I could reach every day.”
“You have helped me discover the best version of myself,” Ms. Saunders said to her “cool nerd,” as she calls him. “A journey that I have been on my entire life.”
Ms. Saunders wore a Vivienne Atelier Bridal dress with a ball gown silhouette befitting a “Bridgerton” ball and a sparkly train that extended almost eight feet behind her. Mr. Wilson wore a burgundy tuxedo, and later changed into a Regency-style coat for their first dance, which began with him kissing his bride’s gloved right hand and her curtsying. The pair then glided into period choreography straight out of “Bridgerton” prequel “Queen Charlotte,” and straight out of time.
On This Day
When Nov. 10, 2024
Where Ebell Club Long Beach in Long Beach, Calif.
Grandpa’s Special Role Ms. Saunders’s 97-year-old maternal grandfather James Wilson Ferguson Sr. served as ring bearer. Not a fan of flying, he traveled by train from Columbus, Ohio, to attend the Southern California wedding. “I am his first granddaughter getting married,” Ms. Saunders said, “so it’s a big deal.”
Music to Marry By Mr. Wilson walked down the aisle, accompanied by his mother, Donna Wilson, and older sister Diadra Wilson, as the Harpeggio Quartet played the song “Dearly Beloved” from Kingdom Hearts, one of the couple’s favorite video games. Ms. Saunders followed, making her entrance to “Love” from the Disney animated film “Robin Hood.” Her parents, Philip and Jean Saunders, greeted their daughter at the end of the aisle as she approached the groom.
Here Come the Suds Each wedding guest received a square of fragrant soap handmade by the bride’s older sister and maid of honor, Tamar Saunders. A note with the gift humorously observed that in the modern era, “frequent bathing has become all the rage, quite a departure from Regency times when a wash was more a matter of whimsy than routine.”
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