For years, Jennie Michelle Thomas and Jeff Robert Angell have performed a song that Ms. Thomas wrote called “Wishes.” But it wasn’t until the day of their wedding, June 29, that Ms. Thomas revealed the deeper meaning behind the lyrics.

“I made some wishes in December / that haven’t melted with the spring,” the song goes.

In a card for Mr. Angell, Ms. Thomas wrote that the line referred to New Year’s Eve in 2019, when Mr. Angell brought Ms. Thomas to his family’s beach house in Delaware. “We sent lanterns into the sky and made wishes on them,” she wrote. “I wished to marry him.”

The two met on April 2, 2019, at a talent competition for inmates at the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City. Mr. Angell, who has worked at Rikers since 2018, was assisting with audio and performing with a band, and Ms. Thomas was there as a volunteer.

Ms. Thomas, 34, a singer and songwriter, is from Yorba Linda, Calif., and has a bachelor’s degree in theater arts from Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, Calif. She was previously a coordinator for the Friendly Visiting program at the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House in New York, helping to organize volunteer visits with older adults who are unable to leave their homes.

Mr. Angell, 48, is a music therapist and a supervisor of creative arts therapy for Correctional Health Services at Rikers Island. He grew up in Rockville, Md., and has a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Pittsburgh and a master’s degree in music therapy from N.Y.U.

While they spoke only briefly at the Rikers talent competition, Mr. Angell was immediately intrigued. “I was like, whoa, who is this breath of fresh air?” he said. “She has a very effervescent, bubbly personality. I was watching her for the rest of the event.”