From Steph's Point of View:

Our Covid love story all started with the help of Allie Gellner. Now for some back story, I met Allie when she was the maid of honor in our friend Logan's wedding. Allie and Logan grew up together and Logan and I went to Capital together. I had the honor of being invited to her bachelorette party where I first met Allie. After that Logan, Allie, Marie and I would go to all the best Country Concerts that Columbus Ohio had to offer. One afternoon, while I am shopping in Home Goods with my mom, I get a text from Allie that says "Steph I want you to meet my friend Cort. He also likes sports and politics." I should have seen the red flag from a mile away because no one actually likes politics.

Allie gave me Cort's number and being the person I am, I had to text him first. Fast forward a couple of weeks, Cort and I decided that it would be a good time to finally meet in person. I had won tickets to a Blue Jackets game and not many of my friends love sports as much as I do so I figured why not take a guy that claims he likes sports. So we meet at Pub Mahones downtown. At the time we both worked downtown in diagonal buildings so we just walked there after work. Unfortunately, the bar is now closed.

So the day we decided to meet up for drinks was the day after Halloween. This was an absolutely terrible idea because I did not feel good all day at work but nothing a little hair of the dog can't change. I guess you could say the first meet and greet went well because he still decided to go to the Blue Jackets game with me.

Fast forward again and we are now getting ready to go to the game. We stop at a bar nearby and of course run into some friends of his. While grabbing drinks we happened to get ID'd to which the bartender happily said "Happy Birthday" to me. Cort looked at me and goes "Oh it's your birthday" to which I awkwardly had to say yes. I was trying to hide this secret all night becuase how awkward is the first birthday celebrations when you start talking to someone let alone your basically first full date.

A few months went by and Covid hit. Prior to that Cort refused to open up to me and even ghosted me for a solid three days at one point. It wasn't until one night that he was very drunk after bowling all day that I picked him up and he felt like it was the best time for us to open up to each other about how we felt about each other.

Thankfully Cort and I both worked for the government which meant we would be working fully remote during Covid. We spent a lot, if not all of our free time drinking wine, watching Chopped and going on very long walks.

A few months later I would start law school and Cort stayed in Columbus. Towards the end of my first year we both were deciding what we were going to do about our living situations and I some how convinced him it would make more sense if we just lived together. He happily agreed and somehow in that same conversation, I convinced him that we should just buy a house together.

After living very happily in our new home, Cort was gone one weekend and I thought it was the best weekend for us to go look at a dog. He came home around 1pm that Sunday (very hungover) to which I proceeded to convince him we should go to the Franklin County Shelter to look at dogs. After a few tears and one very eventful playtime with a dog, our family grew from two to three and we could not picture our lives without Spencer.

A little over a year later, Cort proposed to make the whole family thing official. We still enjoy drinking wine and watching Chopped but now our long walks are with Spencer.

From Cort's Point of View:

An afternoon bar crawl with Allison Gellner and Alex Teetor led to exchanging numbers with a stranger. After a few days of texting and getting to know that stranger, Steph Hunter and I found out that we had a few things in common like competitiveness, disdain for the state government, and love of AFC North football.

Steph asked me out on a date to a Blue Jackets game and I agreed. But I felt like an arena where you can't escape your seat might be a bad first date. So, I asked her to get drinks after work the week prior since we both worked downtown. We chatted, realized we were both normal people and thought we could continue on to the next date.

To make a long story short, that sparked a multiple-month journey of me scaring her friends at bars on weekends because I was staring at Steph, introducing each other to friends, wine nights, fear of commitment from yours truly, and mostly great times. I did not think that I was ready to meet the love of my life, but you have no option when you know they cross your path.

I'm not really sure where to end this. I always tell folks that we met and then there were six months of me being an idiot. But that will never really stop. I just know now that I'd rather be an idiot with her than with anyone else in the world.

Registry