From D.C. to Germany: Couple Celebrates Marriage Before International Move
Tucker Jones and Samantha Shimer
Tucker Jones and Samantha Shimer celebrated their marriage at a dinner with family and friends in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 23. They were married July 28 in a private ceremony at the National Gallery.
The dinner was held at Ambar, a Balkan restaurant on Capitol Hill, where Jones and Shimer had their first date. The menu included modern takes on traditional foods from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. Starters included ajvar (a roasted red pepper spread), beet tzatziki, sesame-crusted halloumi (a cheese from Cyprus), cheese pies with phyllo dough and charcuterie.
The main courses featured various Balkan style meats and fish including ćevapčići (a caseless sausage like a kebab), smoked sausage and drunken mussels flambéed in rakija (a traditional brandy-style moonshine from the Balkans). While some guests enjoyed wines from Southeast Europe, others chose cocktails specific to Ambar, including several that featured rakija.
Jones is the son of Sally Greene and Paul Jones of Chapel Hill, N.C. and grandson of the late Sarah Greene of Gilmer. Shimer is the daughter of Debra Harris of Parkersburg, W. Va.
Later this month the couple will move from Washington to Bonn, Germany, where Shimer will enter the master’s program in Strategy and International Security at the University of Bonn and Jones will begin intensive study of the German language, aiming to start his own master’s the following year.
Jones, who graduated in 2016 from the Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs, worked until February as a program manager for the International Republican Institute, an organization focused on supporting pro-democratic political parties, organizations and movements around the world. Toward the end of his seven years there he primarily focused on building connections with people around the world to help counter China’s and Russia’s influence in their countries, with work that took him from Kenya to Mongolia to Moldova and beyond; he previously focused on supporting pro-democratic actors in Southeast Europe, taking advantage of his command of the Serbo-Croatian and Turkish languages.
His position was eliminated as a result of the Department of Government Efficiency’s termination of funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development and other overseas work to advance the interests of the United States.
Shimer, a 2017 graduate of West Virginia University who holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Maryland, worked until March for the United States Institute of Peace, a nonprofit organization aimed at preventing and resolving violent conflict around the world. There she managed the Institute’s data and conducted research on effective peacebuilding methods with the goal of advancing U.S. efforts to achieve peace without costly foreign wars.
She lost her job as a result of the physical takeover of the Institute by agents of DOGE. A federal district court has ruled the takeover illegal.
The couple plan to live in Europe for at least three years, perhaps indefinitely.
