Sarah and I first got to know each other while we were both students at the University of Notre Dame. We didn’t date in college, but we did do something even better – form a book club! Probably my favorite early memory together with Sarah was when she attended the book club I hosted at my senior year house, which I shared with groomsmen Owen Phelan and Henry Greer.  The first selection we read was The Grand Inquisitor, a chapter in Fyodor Dostoesvky’s Brothers Karamazov.  Dostoevsky is probably Sarah’s favorite author, so I had picked well!

After graduating from college, we both lived in the beautiful city of Chicago, my hometown. Our friendship really grew and developed during that period, even though we still were not a couple.  Going to Kingston Mines, Wrigley Field, and the beach together, along with partying with our big coterie of college and high school friends in the city, marks that year as one of the most fun in my entire life.

Afterwards, we went our separate ways, with Sarah leaving for an exciting employment opportunity in London and myself remaining in Chicago for another year, working on polishing my applications for law school. After her stint in London, Sarah returned to Chicago to collect her things and begin her upcoming cross-country move to New York. We reunited at the apartment of her friends, Katie and David, and then went out for a pizza dinner just the two of us. Sarah then packed up her possessions and got in her U-Haul, ready for her big move to Manhattan.

Little did I know that would be the last time I saw her for nearly two years. But although a great deal of physical space had been introduced into our relationship, our emotional distance only grew shorter and shorter. We kept in constant contact with each other, texting all the time and having long weekly phone calls where we would discuss everything about our lives, what was going on with them, and what we were currently reading – Sarah’s bibliophilia might be my favorite thing about her.  After I matriculated to the University of Virginia School of Law, we talked more than ever.  I remember going on long walks around Charlottesville, talking to Sarah for hours about the exciting new places our lives were taking us, about the triumphs and travails of law school and all the excitement of her new life in the big city.

Then, during the Fall of my second year of law school, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish came to Charlottesville to face off against the University of Virginia Cavaliers. I rounded up a group of friends from college to attend the game, including groomsmen Callaghan Commers, Gates McGavick, and Henry Greer, and our lovely bride, Sarah Barcomb, along with so many of my friends from UVA Law that will be in attendance at our wedding.  During the course of that weekend, not only did the Fighting Irish demolish the Cavaliers with the aid of a characteristically virtuosic performance from tight end Michael Mayer, but Sarah and I also realized that our feelings for each other were far more than just one friend’s affection for another.

Shortly thereafter, we were officially dating, and living the long-distance relationship lifestyle, as I grew to know and love the Amtrak Northeast Regional line. We thrilled each other by showing off the best parts of Charlottesville and New York, including places like Tavolo, Dim Sum Go Go, Daedalus Books, and 787 Coffee. I reminisce so fondly on this part of our relationship, when we were getting to know each other and our lives in a deeper way than ever before.

In the midst of all this, we took the greatest vacation of my entire life, a two week trip across Europe, involving visits to Amsterdam, Brussels, Florence, Badia di Passignano, Siena, and Milan.  We called this our “Lotharingia Tour,” as our banana-shaped course throughout Europe nicely paralleled the borders of that Early Medieval kingdom. We went, along with Amsterdam resident Owen Phelan, to our favorite restaurant in the whole world, Daalder, and enjoyed a 17 course meal with amuse bouches that still blow my mind when I think about them. Owen even took us out for a ride throughout the canals of Amsterdam on his own boat – who knew you were allowed to do something like that!

We then made our way south into Italy, and were simultaneously wowed by the architecture and overwhelmed by the massive crowds of Florence. We then took a step, at Sarah’s suggestion, I’d never taken abroad before – namely, renting a car and driving throughout Italy!  It was a marvelous way to see the country, and something I had never before contemplated while traveling abroad.  It’s something I know I will do on any future travels to Europe and to the tamer parts of Latin America. We were able to take advantage of the car to have perhaps the coolest traveling adventure of my entire life.

On a day trip from our lodgings in the lovely monastery town of Badia di Passignano, we drove over to Siena, a small Tuscan city. Upon our arrival in the city, we found it PACKED, with so much traffic we couldn’t find a place to park our car.  On a whim, I asked Sarah to google the date of Il Palio, Italy’s premier horse race and perhaps the greatest annual spectacle in the sunny peninsula. To our delight, the Palio was being held that very day! I bribed a waitress in a roadside restaurant a couple miles out of town to let me park our car there, and then we walked and bussed our way into the city (and received a ticket for unauthorized bus usage in the process!) We then made our way into the medieval city square, where we were dazzled by the display of horseback pomp and heraldry that seemed to come straight from the pages of Boccaccio. Eventually the races got rained out, but as Sarah and I stood there together getting poured on, I think it was the happiest memory of my entire life.

The following year, I wrapped up law school, and Sarah and I made plans to move to D.C., for my yearlong federal clerkship with Judge Stephen Schwartz. We rented a lovely townhome on a beautiful street which was, albeit, in an earlier stage of gentrification than we had anticipated. While the occasional car theft and gun shot rang out on our street, we fell in love with our nation’s capital, and delved into the incredible dining and cultural scene of D.C. Fiola became our favorite restaurant in America, La Chaumiere our favorite cozy Friday evening meal, and Al’s bread from Catania Bakery our favorite Saturday morning treat.  Our two cats, Rosemary and Pippin, loved their wild outdoors (our backyard), and even caught a bird!  We fell in love with the National Gallery and Thomas Cole’s The Voyage of Life sequence there (there’s an accompanying Course of Empire series of paintings at the New York Historical Society, for any wedding guests who would like to see what all the fuss is about), as well as with the incredible jazz performances put on by the bands of Howard, Maryland, and D.C. universities. However, after a year, it was time to leave D.C., and with the grace of Kirkland & Ellis, I was able to transfer offices from Chicago to New York, so we could truly start our lives together in the center of it all, a city Sarah had taught me to love so much.

Thus in August of 2024 we moved up to New York, even though some of us (Rosemary) were not terribly happy about it. While Sarah was merely returning to something she already loved, for me it was essentially an introduction to a whole new world.  Our first few months in the city together were a delightful whirl, as we truly set up shop together and integrated socially and professionally into the milieu of the city.  We had so many friends in New York, it really felt like a re-run of our 2018 Chicago move, where the bulk of our acquaintances from college were there to greet us.  We’ve become frequent attendees at the Metropolitan Opera and the Morgan Library, our favorite small museum in the city, and have fallen in love with new spots in our new neighborhood, Chelsea, like Joe Coffee, Tia Pol, and Calle Dao.  We’re also surrounded by books and art here, two of our favorite things – 192 Books is our favorite local bookshop.

A few months into our time together in New York, I knew it was time to take our relationship to the next level and propose. With thanks, again, to Kirkland & Ellis, I was able to find a ring that just screamed SARAH to me, and that I knew embodied our relationship and our values in its appearance. It was something I knew I would be proud for us to have as a symbol of our love and to carry us into the next decades of our relationship and our love together.  Due to the vagaries of Sarah’s work travel, my more elaborate proposal plan was thwarted, but once I had the ring I just couldn’t wait a second longer.  As soon as she got home from her work trip to Las Vegas, I got on one knee and proclaimed my love to her. To my delight, she accepted my proposal, and we headed into the cold drizzling November Manhattan night to celebrate our love with a meal at one of our most special restaurants, Locanda Verde.  Sienna Daviau, bridesmaid, even came over later that night to celebrate with us! It was truly a night that will forever be special to me.

We swiftly followed our engagement with a sort of pre-honeymoon, a Thanksgiving trek to Amsterdam and another visit to our dear friend Owen. After Sarah ingeniously overcame some customs hiccups at JFK airport, we made it into the country, and immediately visited the Rembrandt House Museum, a stunning little facility located in the artist’s own house. After a very cosmopolitan Thanksgiving dinner, where Sarah discovered a new love for acro yoga, Owen took us outside Amsterdam to the lovely city of Utrecht, which had its own canals and the sort of stunning church architecture I love. After that, we returned to New York, and had our first little Christmas together, complete with a tree!

The past few months have been a whirl of wedding planning, but have only confirmed my belief at how lucky I am to get to build and spend the rest of my life together with Sarah, the great jewel who completes and perfects the rest of my life. Without her, my life would be so empty and drab, but together, everything fills up in a panoply of color and possibility, and I am so excited for the wonderful things I know our future will bring us.

Thank you to all of us for making the time to attend a special celebration of our love. We hope, in September, to host the most fun, meaningful, and heart-warming celebration for all of our friends and family, and are so excited to see you all soon.