Ballet Dancers Vanessa Zahorian and Davit Karapetyan Get Married

“He’s dark-haired and big-nosed,” she said. “I liked his big nose. His profile is so striking. He has a perfect physique: slim, long legs and perfectly-pointed feet for ballet and a great arch.”

But she was in a long-distance relationship.

A year later, he joined the San Francisco troupe, and they were partnered in rehearsals for “The Nutcracker.” As they danced together, Karapetyan’s feelings for her developed. “I saw she was a very nice girl and this can grow between us, this relationship,” he said. When he invited her to a movie, she turned him down, explaining that she was dating someone else. But after that relationship ended, she recalled thinking, “I’m nervous about exploring this, but I can give it a try.”

In November she agreed to a movie but arrived with another female dancer from the company. “I thought it was a little strange,” he said. Later that month he invited her to his apartment and made dinner. “We were watching TV and we were kind of flirting, and he reached over and gave me a kiss,” she said.

Zahorian said they wanted to keep their relationship private, but by December, other dancers had begun to notice their spending time together.

After six years of dating, he said, “I felt like we were very ready to go to the next step.”