New York Daily News

Venus Grace Mamaril & Naveen Tyagi

- Alison Bowen

Manhattan. Naveen and Venus, both 30, met in 2004 on what was the first blind date for each of them.

Naveen, a first-year medical resident, and Venus, an accountant, met in 2004 when mutual friends set them up.

They quickly realized they had a lot in common, and by the end of the night, Naveen was hoping to get her number.

“It’s like we’ve known each other for a long time,” Venus says.

They dated long-distance for a while, as Naveen was finishing his first summer of medical school out of state.

He proposed in 2007 in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge.

They walked across the bridge from Manhattan, getting ice cream on the Brooklyn side.

On the way back, about halfway through, Naveen asked a passerby to take a photo of them.

Then he proposed, with the skyline in the background.

“I was surprised,” Venus says. “I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ ”

They were engaged for about five years, as Venus went back to school for accounting, and Naveen completed his first few years of med school. During that time, they moved in together in Clifton, N.J.

They decided to get married after seeing a few photos of City Hall weddings, deciding it would be the perfect, simple place to wed.

Naveen and Venus said “I do” at City Hall, then rented a Hummer limo to take them around the city with their family, taking photos at different sites.

For their reception, they ate at Max’s, a favorite Italian place in the East Village that was one of their first date spots.

Along the way, they received well wishes from people all around the city.

“New Yorkers are great, because they were just congratula­ting us,” Naveen says. “It was just nice that everyone was happy for us.”

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