The next time you “like” a social media post, it could lead to a love like you’ve never known.
Working in adjacent industries in the DMV (D.C.-Maryland-Virginia) area, Conswella Gilmore Dizárd, a program manager for the federal government who goes by “Connie,” had already been following Damien “Chip” Dizárd on Instagram when she saw a quote posted to his stories in 2020 and felt compelled to respond to its uplifting message. A traveling wedding and event photographer running his business from Maryland, Chip, in turn, saw an opportunity to network; after sending Connie a request, the two began exchanging messages.
“I knew she knew some people that I knew in the photography industry, and I saw who she followed,” Chip, 51, told theGrio. Having just divorced the year before, he wasn’t looking to enter another relationship. “So it was more of a business transaction at first because I just didn’t know who she was.”
“We chatted for a while just on Instagram,” Connie recalled. “And then one day he’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m tired of chatting on here. Just call me, now.”
The two would eventually schedule their first date in February 2021; in January 2024, they married. Now blending their families in Laurel, Md., both Connie and Chip brought three children to the union — her eldest daughter and son are 34 and 28, respectively, and a younger daughter is 16, and Chip has three daughters: a 17-year-old and 15-year-old twins. On the surface, their love story may call to mind a modern-day “Brady Bunch,” but Chip and Connie’s journey to marriage has far greater depths.
While Chip’s first marriage ended in divorce, Connie was only 40 when her first husband, Todd, died in 2014 after 15 years of marriage and nearly a lifetime of friendship (the two were even prom dates). Bewildered by both the loss and the lack of support and resources available to young widows like herself, Connie founded Premature…
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