Mr. Rybczyk’s father, David Rybczyk, died in 2000. His mother, Francine Guzzardi, lives in New Britain, Conn. They divorced when he was young. “My father was a coach at Central Connecticut, and my friends are coaches,” he said, “and I was like, why get married? This is how my life is going to be.” But “then Ali came along.” On a July 4, 2018, during a vacation in Miami, Mr. Rybczyk, who had bought an emerald-cut diamond ring with baguettes at Northeastern Fine Jewelry in Albany proposed at the patio bar of the Edition Hotel on Miami Beach.

“We had talked about it, but I didn’t know when it was going to happen,” Ms. Jaques said. “I was sitting there with my mojito, and he came up behind me and pulled out the ring and said, ‘Are you sure you want to be Mrs. Rybczyk?’”

She said she was. “It was the one time I was really not expecting it. It was really sweet.”

An unexpected announcement of a different order soon followed. “My back started bothering me,” Mr. Rybczyk said. On July 18, 2018, Ms. Jaques flew to Udine, Italy, for a series of International Basketball Federation events. Mr. Rybczyk went as her guest.

“It was supposed to be a fun week of being in Europe, but Marc was in a lot of pain,” she said. “He was trying to watch the games, but he couldn’t.” When they got home, she insisted he get an M.R.I. Insurance complications caused a wait of two months before the scan was approved.