Joshua Sudman and Julian Wright marry in small Governors Island ceremony

Joshua Benjamin Sudman and Julian Ernest Wright held a short wedding ceremony on an overlook on Governors Island on Dec. 25, with Mr. Sudman’s sister, Lindsay Sudman, officiating after a one-day ordination by the New York City Clerk. The couple met at Columbia in June 2016, formed an indie band called Holy Ride and lived together as roommates after graduating in May 2017.

Mr. Sudman, 30, proposed unplanned on Aug. 13, 2023, in Los Angeles outside the hospital where his mother, Sheryl Sudman, was spending the last days of her life after a pancreatic cancer diagnosis that June. "I said something like, ‘Hey, will you marry me?’" Mr. Sudman recalled, and Mr.

Wright said the moment "felt like one of those true, ‘in sickness and in health’ things." Both men are 30. Mr. Wright, born in Atlanta and raised in Louisville, Ky., graduated from Columbia in American Studies and works as a director at Be Clear. Mr. Sudman, born in San Luis Obispo and raised in Tarzana and Camarillo, earned degrees in economics and political science from Columbia and is senior director of treasury at Nonprofit Finance Fund in New York.

The band broke up in 2018 but the couple remained together; a year and a half later they adopted a cat named Arthur, and in 2020 each changed jobs and moved into a new apartment. In September 2023, about a month after Mr. Sudman’s mother died, the pair spent three weeks caring for Mr.

Key Topics

Culture, Joshua Sudman, Julian Wright, Governors Island, Columbia University, Holy Ride