Neither of them dated anyone else as they developed Preferabli together. She often traveled for work, staying in Airbnbs for months at a time, while he stayed in New York. When the coronavirus pandemic hit and airline travel was halted, Ms. Dillon became stranded in New York.
“The world looked bleak with Covid, and I was scared,” she said. “I asked Stephen if I could move in with him. He said yes.”
In late 2020, while strolling through Central Park, Ms. Dillon shared her worries that Preferabli might not survive the pandemic. But Mr. Dillon made her feel secure. “He said we would figure it out together,” she said. “Without mentioning remarriage, we loved each other and knew it would happen.”
On Sept. 24, 2022, Ms. Dillon proposed while driving back to Haverstraw in the Hudson River Valley, N.Y., where they were living.
“We celebrated with champagne,” Mr. Dillon said. “Pam colors life well outside the lines.”
On Jan. 12, at Le Bernardin in New York, the couple were remarried before 53 guests. David Yoshida, a master sommelier at Preferabli who was ordained by the United Church of Christ in New Haven, Conn., officiated.
After they exchanged vows, a cellist-pianist duo played “Pas de Deux,” a song that had been composed for the couple by Joel Phillip Friedman 30 years ago.
It is a “portrait of an evolving partnership beginning with youthful exuberance,” Mr. Friedman said in his introduction of the song, “passing through rumination on loss and culminating in a state of complex yearning: the desire to make ephemeral love timeless and permanent.”