Katie and Nick Deponte with their son, Graham, near their new home in California. Philip Cheung for The New York Times

Nick and Katie Deponte grew up about 30 minutes away from each other in Southern California — she in Claremont, Calif., at the eastern edge of Los Angeles County, and he in Redlands, Calif., in San Bernardino County.

They didn’t know that until 2019, when they met in Phoenix and discovered they had a mutual childhood friend — one who later told them she should have fixed them up long ago. The Depontes got married in 2023.