Graduating from medical school takes a lot of hard work. Falling in love while you’re doing it takes a whole lot of luck (and some work as well).
Dr. Liu was in her third year of medical school at U.C.L.A., and Dr. Park was just starting his first year of ophthalmology residency training there. Dr. Liu had done an ophthalmology rotation there just four months prior. And yet, it was Hinge that brought them together.
“She looked very cute in her photos, and she said something in her profile about wanting someone who vibes with her friends,” Dr. Park, 32, said. “I figured she must be someone who has a lot of friends who are important to her.”
Dr. Liu, 28, was impressed by his wit. “One of his prompts was ‘My love language is…’,” she said. “He wrote ‘Nutella.’”
Their first date was Nov. 2, 2019, at Elysee Bakery & Cafe, near U.C.L.A., on one of Dr. Park’s rare Saturdays off.
Afterward, he texted Dr. Liu to let her know he had a lovely time. She resisted the urge to text him back immediately, waiting a few hours instead. “I feel like we were both being a little coy,” she said. “Not wanting to scare each other off.”
Then luck intervened two weeks later: “After our first date, we started rotating at the same hospital while I was on my internal medicine rotation,” Dr. Liu said. “We would occasionally run into each other in the hospital cafeteria.” They also texted about once a day.
Their second date was Nov. 11 at Élephante, a rooftop restaurant overlooking the beach in Santa Monica. “We were both open to see where things would take us,” Dr. Liu said.
“That’s where we learned more about each other,” Dr. Park added. And they both liked what they learned. So, they went out again the following week, this time to see a comedy show at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. Going forward, weekly dates were mostly what their schedules would allow.
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
In January 2020, Dr. Park asked Dr. Liu to be his girlfriend. In July 2020, the two unofficially moved in together. “I started crashing with him around then because he lived very close to the hospital where I was rotating,” Dr. Liu said.
Seven months later, in March 2021, things took an especially lucky turn. Dr. Park was hoping to return to Rochester, N.Y., his hometown, to work at his father’s practice. Just then, Dr. Liu “matched” for her residency at the University of Rochester. “It really felt like fate,” Dr. Liu said.
In July 2021, the two officially moved into their new apartment in the Sawtelle neighborhood of Los Angeles. Nearly a year later, Dr. Park proposed one month before they left for Rochester.
Dr. Liu is a dermatology resident physician at the University of Rochester. She holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis and a doctoral degree in medicine from the David Geffen School of Medicine at U.C.L.A. She grew up in a suburb outside of Los Angeles as the daughter of Chinese immigrants.
Dr. Park is an ophthalmologist physician with a specialty in glaucoma at Cornerstone Eye Associates, which was founded by his father, Dr. Steve Park. Dr. Park holds a bachelor’s in biological sciences from Cornell and a doctoral degree in medicine from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. His parents immigrated from Korea.
The couple were wed on Feb. 4 at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills (during what also happened to be Grammys weekend) before 123 guests. Ryan Kingsman, who was ordained by American Marriage Ministries, officiated.
One element the couple did not anticipate was the record-breaking rainfall on their wedding day. But “it actually added to that romantic ambience in its own way,” Dr. Liu said. “One of our guests even said they wanted to make it rain for their future wedding.”
