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Courtney Archie inspired Ashleigh Lewis with her Southern hospitality. A few years later, they decided to marry in New Orleans to honor Mrs. Archie’s ancestors.
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by Alix Mur
In December 2020, Courtney Beneé Archie left New Orleans to settle for a position as a hired nurse anesthetist in Newport News, Virginia. At the time, she was a nurse anesthetist at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Her operating hours were reduced and she replaced the landscape.
It was the first year of covid, so there were few places to faint. In April 2021, Ms Archie, 39, signed up for Tinder, where, three days later, she met Kermit Ashleigh Lewis, 40.
The first thing that caught his attention was a photo of Mrs. Archie in hunting gear. He thought, “How can she do both?”
Lewis, who grew up in Chesapeake, Virginia, and lived in Virginia Beach at the time, is a chief gunner for the U. S. Coast Guard. In the U. S. , in Portsmouth, Virginia. Su first marriage ended in divorce.
Ms. Archie grew up in Baton Rouge and earned her Bachelor of Science from the University of the South School of Nursing.
For a week, they texted from paintings during the day and talked on the phone well into the night while Mrs. Archie cooked.
“We were like the best academics in school over the phone,” Archie said.
A week later, they had their first date at Monsoon, an Indian restaurant in Hampton, Virginia.
“Ashleigh was so different, so caring,” said Ms. Archie, who answers Mr. Archie’s call. “He listened to me and asked me a lot of questions. “
When Mr. Lewis dropped Mrs. Archie off at his apartment, she offered him a takeaway she had prepared: turkey necks with gravy, rice, and kale.
“It’s what my mom would do,” he said. I thought, ‘Who is this woman?’He had that Southern charm that I love. “
They both knew they had met “the one” that night.
He met his circle of relatives a month later, and a month later he met hers. In August, Mrs. Archie and her miniature husky, Piper, moved in with Mr. Archie. Lewis and his French bulldog, Stitch, hesitant, but soon learned that neither would be leaving,” he said.
Mr. Lewis arranged a trip to Hawaii’s Big Island for Valentine’s Day 2022 with a couple who are smart friends. On the outdoor beach, the Lava Lava Beach Club, on the black lava rocks, knelt down and proposed to her. at sunset.
[Click here to see this week’s featured couples. ]
Two months before their wedding, the couple, who now live in Chesapeake, participated in an Iroquois wedding rite on the 30th anniversary of powwow and corn harvest school day, an annual collection for the Cheroenhaka Nottoway Indian tribe of Southampton County. Outdoor rite presided over by the cousin of the groom’s father, County Chief Walt “Red Hawk” Brown on tribal lands in Courtland, Virginia, to honor the groom’s deceased father and his Native American ancestry.
They were married Jan. 7 in front of 250 visitors at the New Orleans Board of Trade, an event area near the French Quarter, through Apostle Kenneth Diggs, founder of Eternity Community Church in Frisco, Texas, who is also the bride’s uncle. .
Ms. Archie had a request when she approached her wedding planner, Audi Brown. He intentionally chose a location near the French Quarter not because of its remarkable cheerfulness and joviality, but because it was where many slaves were bought and sold.
“For this domain to be filled with so much pain and suffering, blood and tears,” Ms. Archie said, “wouldn’t it be great to celebrate and bring love and happiness back to this position where our ancestors didn’t have that?”
While Ms. Brown has a strict “no plantings” policy, a black girlfriend said she was looking to “bring back the narrative”—anything new and different. She convinced.
Given the bride’s love for Disney videos, “The Princess and the Frog” is a favorite of the couple, the wedding had a fairytale theme. (The fact that the groom also has a call with a famous toad eludes them. )
“Ashleigh is great and goes out of her way to make me happy,” Archie said, adding, “Our wedding was like a fairy tale. “
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