As with most Gen-Zers who work from home and travel like crazy, we matched on Hinge in August 2023 and had our first date on September 1st 2023 in Primrose Hill, a picnic overlooking London's gorgeous skyline at sunset. The date flew by and it felt like we already knew each other pretty well. From there, it wasn’t long until we knew we had won the lottery and a few chapters later, here we are!

This story started off with a global IT meltdown (Crowdstrike, remember that?) that had us stranded in gorgeous Luton for 2 long days. We originally had a hike planned on Saturday morning, where the proposal was originally going to happen, but plans changed… Skip to Saturday evening, after a lovely dinner at our local favorite restaurant with the family, we drove to the marina in Cascais for an evening stroll, just the two of us… As we were walking towards the end of the helipad that overlooks the bay of Cascais, it was becoming more and more obvious what was about to happen…(Alex said later that it was either a proposal or murder, so glad Luca chose the first option) After a few minutes of on-the-spot love declaration (there may have been some rambling involved), Luca got down on one knee and next thing you know, Alex crouched down next to him while repeating the sweetest 3-letter word in the English vocabulary…YES!