July 8, 2016: Alex is in New Orleans for a bachelor party. He has a black eye from rocking out too hard to the Hamilton soundtrack. The party wants to go to the casino. Alex wants to head to Frenchmen St. to see the legendary Kermit Ruffins play. He steals away with a small, but drunken contingent. Cortney has a guest, Emma, from Scotland visiting. Cortney wants to show her Frenchmen St. and Kermit just so happens to be playing that night. We met by chance when Alex offered to buy Cortney and Emma drinks for his friends acting like idiots - Cortney's kryptonite is free vodka. We met for a date at Surrey's for breakfast the morning Alex flew back to Boston, though he couldn't eat due to a bachelor-sized hangover. On the plane, we spent hours texting back and forth. Alex wrote, "I'm going to marry you on July 8, 2017" - a year from the night we met. And he sends Cortney a calendar invite.

Long-distance provided us lots of exciting travels, a text-heavy relationship, late-night FaceTimes, random date ideas (like watching Netflix or playing cribbage "together" 1800 miles apart), and a whole lot of money spent. From Mexican wine country to Vermont cabins, our San Diego - New Orleans relationship spanned nations and kept airlines in business. Not buying stock in Southwest Airlines in 2016 was a serious mistake for all of us. It also gave us some weird traditions which we still honor today. On New Year's Day 2018, we packed up Alex's Honda Accord with his entire life and drove from San Diego - San Francisco - Zion National Park, Utah - Austin, Texas and finally, home to New Orleans. We still love to travel but now spend more time cooking together, learning Italian, working political campaigns, exploring New Orleans, volunteering, playing cribbage, gin, or pinochle, and scheming up our next adventure together. In November 2019, after running a political campaign, Cortney and Alex went to Europe. After a road trip through Portugal, they went to Bath, UK to visit Cortney's friends, Laura and Dan. They spent the night and then Cortney showed Alex around Bath before their train back to London. As we crossed over the Pulteney Bridge to visit the Royal Victoria Gardens, Cortney stopped in her tracks, joking about a gorgeous antique emerald and diamond ring. Alex looked at her and said "Let's get it as your engagement ring." After establishing Alex wasn't joking, he pulled Cortney into the shop, forced her to try it on and, with 20 minutes until the train to London took off, bought it. We had time for another mulled wine before sprinting onto the train. In February 2020, after they had spent the day cleaning up Mardi Gras rubbish and registering new voters, Alex officially gave Cortney the ring at LA Serendipity Winery on the North Shore - one of our favorite places.