A Tennis Ball to the Head Was Just the Start of Their Love Story

When Eric Tyler Rothman threw a tennis ball at Courtney Arielle DiGia’s head with the word “prom?” on it at Timber Lake Camp in Shandaken, N.Y., during the summer of 2012, neither of them expected that 12 years later, they would marry.

It seemed especially unlikely because after taking a single photo together at the camp’s prom, they went their separate ways and didn’t speak again — until both ended up at Duke University in the fall of 2014.

“Our camp always did camp T-shirt day, which was like a random day in November, so we met up that freshman year to take a picture” and then post it on social media, Ms. DiGia said.

It wasn’t until a party hosted by his fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi, a year later that their relationship began. A mutual friend, Meredith Cash, approached Mr. Rothman outside the bathroom and told him to go dance with Ms. DiGia.

“That’s normally something I would really never do,” Mr. Rothman said, but “something made me feel like I had to.” They spent the rest of the night dancing to pop and electronic dance music and talking.

From there, the two started casually dating until the fall of their junior year, when they both left to study abroad — Ms. DiGia in Australia; Mr. Rothman in Scotland. They decided to not define the relationship before leaving, but they ended up finding ways to communicate constantly despite the time difference.