Their story began in New Orleans in May of 2021. They were both somehow at a fancy restaurant and ran into each other and immediately knew it was fate! Just kidding... they met on Bumble (a dating app), to be exact. Bumble is where women reach out to men, and it would only be a while before Justie would be stung with love.

Justie is a pilot for American Airlines and had a layover in downtown New Orleans, just on the east side of the Superdome. The dating app uses your GPS location, and it just happened that Gabi lived a quarter of a mile south of Justie’s hotel. Due to a short overnight in New Orleans, they didn’t have enough time to meet in person but agreed to a date when he returned two weeks later.

Despite the date being planned two weeks out, when the night finally arrived Justie’s flight was late and Gabi had to work the following day, so their visit was brief. For those of you who know Gabi, the girl just doesn’t stay up late on a working night, so they hung out for less than an hour at her local watering hole. His big takeaway from their first “meet & greet” was that he was taken back as to how Gabi looked nothing like her profile pictures on Bumble. Wow, he felt like he had hit the jackpot and told her how much prettier she was in person compared to her Bumble profile. Gabi’s takeaway was mostly being intrigued by Justie’s confidence, easy personality, and charm. Although he might have had the creepiest mustache at the time they first met (like the comedian Borat), she was still interested and felt like he was worth an actual first date. Here’s a side note: at the end of the “meet and greet,” the two had an extremely awkward first kiss that they both laugh about today. When Justie and Gabi were leaving, she gave him a hug and a peck on the cheek, which is common in New Orleans society as a sign of friendship. What did he know? This Oklahoma cowboy was very confused and thought it meant that she wanted a real kiss; so, he tried to kiss her on the lips. The result was a very strange kiss that left both feeling very confused. It was not until a few months later when Justie met Gabi’s friend Laila that the kiss on the cheek made sense. When Laila was leaving, she gave Justie a kiss on the cheek (like all good New Orleans friends do) … and it all came full circle for Justie. He said to Gabi “oh I messed up!” It made him think of a plane’s misfiring engine. She had to teach him all about the Cajun-French and French influence of culture in south Louisiana. After that he was back up in the skies again. The mechanical was fixed.

Anyway, life was busy for both of them, so they really didn’t meet again after their initial date until two months later, when Justie had a second trip to New Orleans.

Justie reached out to Gabi to let her know he would be in New Orleans for a layover, invited her to dinner and to his surprise she agreed. Their first actual date turned out to be an evening filled with New Orleans “joie de vivre.” That means full of happiness to those of you from Oklahoma. Dinner was at a nice seafood restaurant where the conversation flowed, laughter reigned, and the night ended too soon due to an early flight the next morning.

After this date, Justie asked Gabi if he could visit her more often during his work trips. From that point on, he would intentionally arrange his work trips to be New Orleans as often as possible. He was falling in love with the Cajun Queen.

After about three months of dating the sweetest ‘God wink’ occurred (meaning something so serendipitous that it couldn’t have been an accident). You know how Justie first met Gabi’s family? He was in the middle of a trip and was supposed to fly from Savannah to Dallas/ DFW then from DFW up to Madison, Wisconsin. The plane had a mechanical issue in DFW and Justie ran out of time due to FAA work rule constraints while the mechanics were trying to fix it. It was around 1130am and this pilot was off the hook to American until 12pm the next day. He noticed there was a flight to New Orleans at 1pm and decided he would head down there for the evening, and a nice supper with the girl he was beginning to think about more often. Through a series of an additional American flight cancellations, Justie found himself booked on a flight to New Orleans via Southwest airlines. The only problem is that Southwest flies out of Love Field in Dallas and Justie was currently at DFW airport. He had no other choice but to hop in an Uber and go try to catch the Southwest flight at Love Field halfway across the city. He gets to Love Field and secures a seat on the Southwest flight. Justie then noticed there was a mother with a crying baby sitting across the aisle and in the row in front of him. The mother stood up into the aisle attempting to soothe her baby. People were still wearing masks on the plane and when the mother stood up Justie thought this person looked a lot like Gabi. Then she walks up to him and says, “you look familiar….” Justie had seen pictures of Gabi’s sister, Amy, previously and when she spoke to him, he realized who she was and exclaimed “AMY?!” Yes indeed! She then pointed to her mom, grandma, and grandfather who were are all sitting in the row right in front of Justie! It was a surprising event to say the least, but also very cool. Gabi’s grandmother, Gloria, also corrected Justie on the proper pronunciation of Gabi’s name! It’s Gah-bee, not Gabby.

Gabi, was offered a job in Austin, TX, a month after Justie met her family. The December of 2021 was like no other December ever before. Justie helped her to pack up and sell her first home. She realized that he was like no other man that she had ever dated before. After so many frogs that had crossed her path, her prince had finally arrived. Justie consistently showed up for Gabi during that period. They even packed, loaded, and drove a Uhaul together over 600 miles to Austin. At this point, she knew that Justie was a great wingman, but she wanted him to be her Captain for the rest of her life. Austin is a lot closer to OKC than New Orleans, and there have been a lot more flight options. Since she moved to Austin their relationship blossomed. On July 29th Justie took her to a romantic location, with a photographer in tow, kneeled and asked her to marry him. The plane had landed. Her Captain was now onboard and she said yes!

Flight 0729 is leaving for romantic spots around the world. All aboard! Your crew today are the Golay’s and this will be an amazing trip. Get ready for takeoff. The couple is up front, and Ben and Claire are also here to help take care of you. Hold on to your seats and, in case you have watched the movie “Airplane” where half the people got sick, we suggest you not order the fish. Love you all!

Things to Do

Champagne's Cajun Swamp Tours