Alexandra met Phil when she stumbled into a travel book store in London that he just so happened to own...no that's not quite right, is it? Like all great loves, this story started out with a fish (how did it end up like this? It was only a fish!). A fish taco to be more exact. What type of fish exactly is sadly a detail lost to history and all-inclusive Mexican liquor, for Alexandra and Phil met on a business school trip to a Cancun resort in March 2019. At a dinner on this trip, our pescatarian protagonists locked eyes for the very first time when they realized they were the only people at the table remotely interested in the fish tacos, and before they knew it, there was but one left. Like Trae Young chasing after a loose ball, Phil flared his elbows and pounced. Luckily for all involved, it was at this moment, that our hero (I feel like that's fair) remembered that while he may have come from a dinosaur egg, he was not raised by wolves. "Oh did you want the last one?", Phil asked the mysterious, and to this point anonymous, blonde beauty. Perhaps picking up on his tone, which can best be described as 'Spirit Airlines flight attendant approaching a passenger who hit the call button for the 5th time on a Tulsa to Tampa 6:50am flight', Alexandra politely declined. Phil didn't ask a second time. With the taco distraction out of the way, Phil finally picked up on the blonde and beauty part mentioned earlier. Luckily 10 years of galavanting around NYC (primarily to movie theaters and sports bars, but still) had trained him for this exact moment. "Where are you from?" "Atlanta" "Oh. Do you like the Braves and Falcons?" "Yes, my family are big fans" "Cool" Nailed it. Now, Phil had seen Hitch enough times (although is there really such a thing as 'enough' times to see Hitch? A question for an episode of Chill w/ Phil perhaps) to know that this exchange had not laid the groundwork for what was destined to become the most important relationship of his life. It hadn't even laid the groundwork for asking Alexandra for her notes for the Marketing 101 final. But he had waited 27 years to meet her, what were another few months? 5 months to be exact. It was a humid August night in Chelsea and Phil was watching the Yankees, once again going over his list of why Aaron Boone needed to be fired yesterday, when his phone buzzed. It was a WhatsApp from someone that the app suggested was 'Alexandra Eichenblatt'. Upon closer examination, the squinting blonde, beauty in the tiny circle confirmed it. Phil's heart stopped. To quickly rewind a few weeks, Phil had moved in with a close friend of Alexandra's (hi Diya!) earlier that month, and our heroine (I know that's fair) had stopped by the apartment a few times. Each time she did, Phil scrambled to do a few push-ups, change into his finest clothes (least wrinkly t-shirt), turn off Rick & Morty, and pick up the nearest book ('Marketing for Dummies' - seriously, Phil needed those notes). They had exchanged some pleasantries during these visits ("Do you like the Hawks?" "Yes"), and things were looking up. So it was a thrilling moment when that text popped up on Phil's phone, 'Hey, it's Alexandra! Do you have a drill I can borrow?' She was building a table, and mistook Phil for someone who owned a drill (they aren't commonly used in plumbing). Alas, Zola only allows us another 100 words, but to summarize the rest, through a shared appreciation of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, an aborted trip to Ghana, two dead pet fish (we miss you Tank! Val, we barely got to know you), a pandemic, and more laughs and tears than we can count, we could not feel luckier or more excited to celebrate with you! - Hi! Alexandra here. This is a mostly factual account from Phil's POV. I'd only like to add a massive thank you to the friends and family who supported me in our many many months-long texting courtship (once described by Pedro as a WhatsApp Russian novel) before Phil finally asked me out. You are the heroes.