In real life, Amy Abrams fell in love with her best friend, Ronen Glimer. Her role was a bit like that of Julia Roberts in the film “My Best Friend’s Wedding. ” Only Amy was lucky. Ronen had no intention of marrying someone else

Still, their romance took a while to evolve – 11 years, in fact.

Amy and Ronen met in 1992 during staff week at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin. Ronen recalls: “We dated the entire summer and broke up when we went back to school. I was 18 and about to start my first year at Columbia University. Amy, who grew up in Highland Park, Illinois, was off to start her sophomore year at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

“We were in touch from time to time during college, ” says Amy, “and when I moved to New York City in 1998, we became close friends again. We enjoyed a deep friendship, and we thought of each other as best friends. Ronen was my closest guy friend in New York. “

During those years, getting married was not a top priority for either of them. Ronen and Amy were interested in getting ahead in their careers. Ronen, a graduate of Columbia University, became vice-president of marketing for the communications firm Epana Networks.

Amy, after earning a B.A. in literature at Madison, garnered an M.A. from Fordham University in counseling psychology and became an entrepreneurial consultant. She got busy helping other women articulate what it is they want. She also applied this skill to her personal life

“Our best-friend ‘only’ phase lasted until the fall of 2002, ” says Ronen.

Amy fills in the details: “I had received an email that was quite devastating to me. And even though it was very, very early in the morning, I knew that I had to call Ronen, and I knew that he wouldn’t mind. He was the person that I always relied on. He was the person that I cared most about. And then I realized — Ronen had become more than a best friend. “

Amy’s friend Aliza Haas had pretty much seen this coming. “I told her numerous times that there was this special connection between her and Ronen. It just took Amy a while to recognize it. But she did eventually. “

Two months after Amy realized how very much Ronen meant to her, the couple took a vacation together to Puerto Rico. The best friends had fallen in love, and soon began to plan their wedding.

“I had spent 15 years at Camp Ramah, and I always dreamed of getting married in a camp-like setting, ” recalls Amy. “And since we met at Ramah, this type of wedding seemed most appropriate. ” Friends and family joined Amy and Ronen for a Ramah-like wedding weekend at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Connecticut.

The National Ramah Commission, the camping arm of Conservative Judaism, takes pride in the hundreds who have fallen in love and married someone they met at a Ramah camp or a Ramah Israel program. They publicize these stories on their website: http://www.campramah.org/marriages.html

Debby Porten, a practitioner of systemic psychotherapy in Jerusalem, Israel, met her husband through a Ramah connection. Camp Ramah, she says, is “fertile ground for meeting and mating. ” Its strength, she says, is its emphasis on creating a living, vibrant community — emphasis on the word ‘community.’ And within that community, young people get to know each other in a 24/7 natural environment. “

Amy and Ronen were married on September 12, 2004. Mazal tov!