“I think Laura was trying to navigate her job and her love for Abbi,” said her father, Rick Everett, a former managing editor of The Star-Ledger in Newark.

Ms. Holt said she would refrain from appearing outwardly supportive or affectionate toward Ms. Everett. “When we were walking around Cambridge or some other places, we were always a little careful,” she said. And though Ms. Everett is active on social media, it, too, was off limits for expressions of their love and life together.

That all changed last spring when they decided to get married. For three weeks in June, Ms. Everett made appointments to speak with each of the church leaders she works with. “When Laura was telling the bishops, she had to get the words out really quickly: ‘I’m getting married — to a woman,’ ” Ms. Holt said.

Ms. Everett recalled the leaders’ response. “I was treated with respect,” she said. “And, oh yeah, surprise. The president of my board and I had no template for how to do this. We took our best guesses. How do you make public this information at a time when some churches are really divided and others are celebrating a Supreme Court decision?”

The Rt. Rev. Gayle E. Harris, the bishop suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and the head of the board at the Massachusetts Council of Churches, said, “Laura was asking us to be companions as we can, and as we are willing.” After a moment she added, “When something is presented as a theory or a law, it’s one thing. It’s another to experience a person in a situation. Her colleagues know her as a person. It’s kind of like that old song, ‘To Know Her Is to Love Her.’ ”

She paused, again, before adding, “There was no strong disavowal.”

On Aug. 29, the couple had a wedding that mixed the traditional and unconventional. Rousing hymns were sung throughout the service, officiated by the Rev. Greg Morisse, who attended Harvard Divinity School with Ms. Everett. Bishop Harris and the Rev. Laura Ruth Jarrett, the senior pastor of Hope Central Church, participated in the ceremony.