It was 2022, SMB had survived COVID, but had had a bad breakup and was having a "what am I doing with my life" moment and travel was a tough gig at that point. She decided to move to Phoenix (as her mom and dad lived there). It was time to get out of Chicago. So she decided if she was going to move to Phoenix, she should try to date in Phoenix. And went on Hinge. Olivier had recently broken up with his longtime girlfriend, had been on the dating apps, and was about to get off them. VOILA! SMB and Olivier met on Hinge. We matched on Tuesday, messaged on Wednesday (SMB said she should have bounced him because of his GREEN text), talked on the phone on Thursday and Friday. The first date was on Saturday, and it lasted 9 hours. We bonded over a lot of things, like we both wanted to be veterinarians when they were young. Olivier was born in Paris, SMB's favorite place is Paris. SMB still wasn't convinced that she was moving to Arizona. Olivier said, I think this is probably something here, but I don't want to do long distance, so if you don't eventually move here, it probably won't work. SMB said, that's fair. And went back to Chicago. Olivier visited in May and SMB put her condo on the market the end of May. And the rest...well, is history. We have traveled to LA, Vegas, Palm Springs, Taos/Santa Fe, Arches NP/Antelope Canyon, Flagstaff, Mexico, Paris, Mauritius and Australia together. We bought our condo in the Biltmore area in August.

The Phoenix Zoo is the largest privately owned, non-profit zoo in the US. We love this zoo; every dollar you spend goes to the conservation and support of animals. We are CRAZY animal lovers. The ceremony will be outside of Ruby's House, which was named for the first elephant that the zoo rescued from the logging industry in Thailand. The people at the zoo didn't know that she had been "taught AKA forced" to paint. So when she kept trying to paint in the sand, they gave her a paint brush and she painted. They then sold the paintings to support the zoo. She used to get her own fan mail! The reception is in front of Stone Terrace where Olivier and SMB like to go to listen to conservationists that come to speak at the zoo about animals, like the Painted Dogs in Zimbabwe and the Grevy Zebras in Kenya.