Justin swiped right hoping Madeline might be the one. Madeline swiped right doubting much would come of it. There’s a version of this story where it never happens. Madeline almost didn’t open the app that week. Justin almost picked a different night. But somewhere in the small arithmetic of late March 2025, two profiles found each other, and a sushi spot in Evanston was quietly chosen as the unlikely setting for everything that came next. Justin walked in certain, in the quiet way you can be certain of something you can’t yet name. Madeline walked in bracing for disappointment, half-expecting to be home by nine. Dinner stretched. Then it stretched some more. Outside, the night had turned unexpectedly warm. It was one of those random gifts March in Chicago sometimes hands over, a pocket of spring tucked between cold weeks. So we walked. Block after block of sleeping Evanston, slower than necessary, taking the long way on purpose the way people do when they don’t want an evening to end. The lake when we reached it was dark and still, the water still winter-cold. Neither of us minded. By the time we said goodnight, Madeline’s skepticism had quietly dissolved, and Justin’s hopeful hunch had hardened into something steadier. We’ve been inseparable ever since.

Almost a year later, we packed for New Orleans to celebrate Madeline’s birthday. Neither of us had ever been, and the city had been sitting in our imaginations for months. Then the tornado-ridden storms came… Flights cancelled. Plans dissolving by the hour. We could have rebooked. Could have stayed home. Instead, late that night, we threw bags in the car and pointed it south through Illinois, through the long quiet middle of the country, past truck stops in the small hours, past sunrise glowing pink in the rearview. When New Orleans finally appeared, it appeared all at once. Live oaks heavy with moss. Wrought-iron balconies tangled with vines. Music spilling from doorways before noon. The river slow and brown and ancient. The air smelling of beignets and rain and something older. We were exhausted. We were dazzled. We were exactly where we were supposed to be. On the evening before Madeline’s birthday, Justin mentioned a dinner reservation. But first, a walk to Jackson Square. Only a block and a half from our Airbnb in the French Quarter. The kind of throwaway suggestion you don’t think twice about. The square glowed. St. Louis Cathedral rose impossibly white against the dusk, steeples lit from below, the gardens in front clipped into perfect symmetry. Justin led Madeline across the street, up to the overlook, and turned. Madeline stopped, breath caught. Justin took Madeline’s hands. The words came easily as they had been months in the making. Then there was a knee. And a ring. And the world went very small and very quiet. Madeline said yes before the question was finished. A moment later out of the soft chaos of laughter and tears and disbelief a woman stepped forward with a camera and introduced herself. Justin had thought of everything. What followed was a slow, joyful, slightly delirious wander through Jackson Square at golden hour: every spot another picture, every picture proof that the swipe a year before, the long road trip, the wrong-then-right plans… all of it had been leading exactly here. The photos live on the Gallery page.