When Mariama Rose Diallo and Benjamin Gerrish Dickinson, both screenwriters and directors, met in July 2018 at a Brooklyn bar, they became locked in a deep conversation. Ms. Diallo said she became so intrigued that she thought about “how close I had come to upending my life by running off with a handsome stranger.”
That might have been difficult for Ms. Diallo, 33, who is currently completing her debut feature film, “Master,” which will be released by Amazon Studios next year. She also was dating someone else when she met Mr. Dickinson, 39, who wrote and directed the feature short films “First Winter” (2012), and “Creative Control” (2015).
“The chemistry was undeniable,” Ms. Diallo said. “The only issue was that neither of us were single.”
Though Ms. Diallo refrained from running off with Mr. Dickinson, she could not stop running into him.
They were first reunited in 2018 at a dance party in Brooklyn, where they both lived, and where Ms. Diallo stunned Mr. Dickinson by asking him, “Why haven’t you tried to call me?”
Later that year at the New York City Marathon, where she and Mr. Dickinson were part of a group assembled to cheer on the runners, he asked a mutual friend for her email address.
By December, Ms. Diallo, who graduated from Yale, and Mr. Dickinson, who graduated from N.Y.U., were an item.
“I had such strong feelings for Benjamin,” Ms. Diallo said. “When he emailed me, I broke up with my boyfriend shortly thereafter.”
On their first date, at a cocktail lounge in Brooklyn in November 2014, they sang karaoke.
“We hit it off immediately,” Ms. Diallo said. “As soon as we sat down together, I felt completely relaxed.”
They began regularly dating immediately, and were soon flying on a plane together to a work-related meeting to pitch movie ideas to film executives in Los Angeles, and made a vacation out of it by adding a trip to Palm Springs.
Ms. Diallo said that in the ensuing months, two of their favorite pastimes became running and watching movies together.
“I’ve dated filmmakers before, but they never seemed to actually want to watch anything,” Ms. Diallo said. “But Benjamin and I totally enjoy going to the movies together.”
They were engaged on their two-year dating anniversary, Nov. 14, 2020, after they quarantined together during the pandemic in Woodstock, N.Y., where they enjoyed a magnificent view of the Hudson Valley.
“Her personality and her identity was completely forged on her own,” Mr. Dickinson said. “She didn’t need me, so I could tell that she wanted to be with me.”
Ms. Diallo returned the compliment. “Our lives together are completely harmonious,” she said. “I’m able to share so much, with this companion, this friend of mine who likes the same things in the same way that I like them.”
They were married Aug. 28 in an outdoor ceremony at Heartland, a private farm in Campbell Hall, N.Y. David May, a friend of the couple who was ordained by the Universal Life Church, officiated. Hana Driss, also a friend of the couple, took part in the ceremony.
Among the guests were the bride’s parents, Florence Kabba of New York and Dr. Djibril Diallo of Dakar, Senegal.
Also in attendance were the groom’s parents, Stephanie Dickinson and Gordon Dickinson of Evanston, Ill. The groom’s father is retired as a senior vice president of Callan Associates, a Chicago-based investment consulting firm.
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