Three British tourists got married thanks to the wrong bar

When Jessica first met Luke at the wedding, she knew she had met the right person. Luke also had similar thoughts and officially knew her since his friend Becca’s wedding.

The seeds for this love story were sown many years ago, in the summer of 2014, in a bar in Birmingham, Alabama, USA – what Luke still calls the “butterfly effect”.

At that time, Alabama was not a popular vacation destination for a group of young British men in their 20s including Luke, Chris and Charlie. They visited this place randomly while on a road trip across America.

Being a football fan and cheering on the New Orleans Saints team, three British tourists decided to fly to Atlanta, Georgia, then rent a self-driving car to begin the two-week journey to New Orleans and back. On the way, they stopped in Birmingham to rest and entered the first bar they saw on the way.

Because I came during the day, the restaurant was deserted. Three tourists each ordered a beer. Knowing that the three tourists were single, the bar staff advised them to return to the bar in the evening because there was a party for law school students. Luke, Chris and Charlie called this an “interesting coincidence” because in the UK, all three are also practicing law. The idea of ​​interacting with a group of American lawyers of the same age excited them.

“And so we broke into the law school party,” Luke said.

That night, in a bar in Birmingham, there was a law student named Alice. At first, she was not excited about the party so she wanted to leave early. When she was about to pay for her drinks, she received a text message from a friend saying: “Get out, we’re surrounded by sexy British guys.”

Alice looked at the message with some skepticism, but also curiosity. She did as she was told and was introduced to three British guys – Chris, Luke and Charlie – each holding a beer. They are charming, friendly and somewhat tipsy.

Chris immediately impressed Alice. The idea of ​​leaving was suddenly no longer appealing, but she still had to leave because she had to go home to take care of her dog. Before leaving, she promised to come back in an hour.

Meeting the boys again at the bar, Alice unconsciously approached Chris. Chris is also inexplicably attracted to the American girl. Even at that time he thought “I will marry this girl” even though they were only 23 years old at that time. However, they never exchanged phone numbers with each other.

The next morning, Chris, Luke and Charlie got in the rental car, left Birmingham and drove four hours along the Gulf of Mexico to the beach. All the way, sitting in the passenger seat, Chris kept thinking about Alice, imagining a future with her and then brushing it off. They live on both sides of the Atlantic so this is unlikely to go anywhere.

Midway through, Luke suddenly revealed that he had given Alice Chris’s number when she asked for it. A week later, Alice and Chris met at a football game in Mississippi. Chris invited, and Alice decided to go, albeit with some hesitation.

Before flying back to England, Chris returned to Birmingham and spent the last three days with Alice. It was a wonderful time for both of them, but their future remained unclear. Chris returns to life and work in England, and Alice prepares to complete her studies in America. They have only known each other for a few days and do not have many long-term plans.

Still, Chris still holds out hope. On both sides of the Atlantic, they maintain contact with endless WhatsApp messages. Friends warned her that it was just “holiday love”. Her mother even said perhaps she was won over “just because he has an English accent”. But Alice clearly knew her feelings because she never considered this a quick joy.

For months afterward, they continued to exchange long text messages and occasionally flew to visit each other. Every time they meet, their feelings grow deeper. When Chris moved to Hong Kong to work for a while, Alice flew to visit him. The night before the trip, she slept over at her best friend Becca’s house.

In Hong Kong, Chris proposed to Alice. “We met in August 2014 and got married a year later,” Alice recalls. The wedding took place in New Orleans, Charlie and Luke, two close friends of the groom, were both present. Alice also invited friends, including best friend Becca.

A few times during their first year of dating, Alice and Chris wondered if Becca was compatible with Charlie and they decided to try to match the two friends.

The first time Charlie and Becca met was in the spring of 2015. They had feelings for each other but didn’t talk much. Before Alice and Chris’s wedding, the second couple began exchanging phone numbers for texting.

“I really like her and am counting down the days to see her again at Alice – Chris’s wedding,” Charlie said.

When he met Becca again, at the wedding, he was even more certain of his feelings. Becca had similar feelings. During the wedding activities, they were almost inseparable from each other. In the fall of 2015, Alice, Chris, Becca and Charlie went on a trip to Prague. Czech Republic then Edinburgh, Scotland. During the year-end holidays, Charlie visited Becca’s family in Florida, USA.

For Becca, the family visit became an important turning point. She has three older brothers, they all like Charlie. A year later, they got engaged. Before meeting Charlie, Becca dated someone for 6 years. When that person asked her to move to New York to live with him, she refused. But when she met Charlie, she accepted his offer to move to England with him.

“I realized that with the right person, making decisions becomes very easy,” Becca said. In the summer of 2017, they got married in Long Island, New York. Alice and Chris were both present.

Luke – the third friend on the road trip every year – also attended. Here, he met the love of his life, Jessica. Alice and Becca always said Jessica was “a wonderful girl.” Luke is also a lovely man, but according to Alice, no one really knows what Luke wants in love.

This time they met, they had all entered adulthood, no longer boys and girls in their early 20s. Relationships were no longer like youthful jokes, and high expectations were placed on the pairing. Becca and Charlie decided to arrange seating so that Luke and Jessica sat next to each other during the wedding events.

“We talked for a long time,” Jessica recalls. The more they talked, the more she realized they got along. Becca of course did not miss this moment. She made sure the wedding photographer captured Jessica and Luke’s first kiss.

After several months of flying back and forth between the UK and the US, Luke and Jessica decided to move to Dubai in the spring of 2018. For some people, this was an impulsive decision. But Jessica and Luke believe they’re made for each other – Becca, Charlie, Chris and Alice all support them.

Like the previous two couples, Jessica and Luke got married in Amsterdam that same year. They planned to hold a more grand wedding in 2020 but postponed it because of the epidemic. Currently, the couple still lives in Dubai. The remaining two couples lived in England, then Alice and Chris moved to North Carolina, USA to live and have three children. Becca and Charlies also moved to Texas and had three children. Their children became close friends and all considered Luke as their uncle. The three couples still communicate regularly, despite the geographical distance.

To this day, the three British boys still believe that their trip to America that year was destiny. If someone had told Luke, Chris and Charlie at age 23 that they would marry American girls and live thousands of kilometers away from their homeland, they certainly wouldn’t have believed them. But now, they are all grateful that that year’s vacation brought them the great love of their lives – three American wives.