PROSPECT HEIGHTS — When Laura DePalma worked as a video editor and television producer for DeSales Media Group, she kept rubber ducks on her desk to make her co-workers smile. One colleague, Evan Bellouny, liked to go to her desk and rearrange the ducks when she wasn’t looking.
That playfulness between DePalma and Bellouny, who first met in the DeSales Media offices in 2016, was the start of something big. The two began dating in 2019 and were married at Mary Queen of Heaven Church in Old Mill Basin on May 18.
DePalma and Bellouny are among the many married couples in the United States who met on the job.
According to Forbes Advisor, 60% of workers surveyed reported being involved in an office romance at some point in their careers, and 43% of couples who began dating each other on the job eventually said, “I do.”
With the popularity of dating apps and the increase in remote work options for employees, the fate of the office romance is unclear.
However, many sweethearts still meet the old-fashioned way — across the cubicle wall — something that doesn’t come as a surprise to DePalma.
“You spend all this time together, especially in this culture where the harder you work, the more you get ahead,” she said. “And people are spending more and more time at work. You go out for drinks after work, or you go out to dinner … with the people you work with.”
For DePalma and Bellouny, rubber ducks were just the beginning.
“It was purely to annoy her, and to have a little bit of fun in the office,” Bellouny admitted about his duck rearranging. “And from there, we began using them as weapons we would throw together over the cubicle wall.”
Bellouny also played other tricks on DePalma, like changing the date on her Advent calendar, which “would drive her absolutely nuts.” The two ultimately found they were frequently thrown together at work with Bellouny often serving as a camera and lighting operator for the shows DePalma produced. Over time, they came to form a mutual admiration that was strengthened during road trips.
“The production department used to operate a show called ‘The Chair,’ and we had to travel the country a lot,” DePalma recalled about the show, which featured profiles of different bishops around the nation. “I think that contributed a lot to getting our relationship started because we had flights together. We’d end up having meals together at all these places around the country.”
Bellouny is now a technical operations supervisor for DeSales Media. DePalma left the company in 2020 and is now marketing director for RENEW International, a faith-based company.
In 2022, Bellouny proposed to DePalma during a hike up Bear Mountain State Park in New York. Many of their DeSales Media friends attended the wedding.