From the moment Matthew Alec Davis and Dr. Marc Mahoney Beuttler first made eye contact, they each felt an instant attraction.
The two had connected on the dating app Grindr and agreed to meet on Aug. 11, 2015 at the now-closed restaurant Yuki Izakaya in New Orleans, where they talked easily over dinner.
“Our eyebrows both shot up when we saw each other,” Mr. Davis, 36, recalled, adding that they soon realized that they had found something meaningful.
Neither knew at the time that their relationship would endure 14 address changes over the course of seven years.
The moves began with Mr. Davis, who attended a yearlong master’s program in Madrid starting in January 2016. Dr. Beuttler, 32, had encouraged a torn Mr. Davis to study in Madrid, just as he had done as an undergraduate student. “Spain was very important to me and I wanted him to experience it,” Dr. Beuttler said. “Plus, I thought, ‘If you love him, let him go.’”
Dr. Beuttler has a bachelor’s degree in Spanish literature from Tulane University, a master’s degree in medical ethics from N.Y.U. and a medical degree from Louisiana State University. Mr. Davis graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and has a master’s degree in international business from IE University in Madrid.
Whether they were still in a relationship while Mr. Davis was in Spain depends on who you ask, Dr. Beuttler said, jokingly. They tried to break up, but it never stuck.
When the master’s program was over, in December 2016, Mr. Davis came back to Dr. Beuttler in New Orleans, though only for three weeks. Mr. Davis had accepted a temporary job as a special assistant with Desert X, an art biennial in Palm Springs, Calif. He left in January 2017, and in March, Dr. Beuttler told Mr. Davis it was decision time. Either Mr. Davis came back to New Orleans when his gig was over in May or their relationship would be over.
“I should be his next destination,” Dr. Beuttler said.
Mr. Davis did come back. But new jobs for Mr. Davis and a medical internship and residency for Dr. Beuttler separated and reunited them several more times.
Then, in 2021, the home that Mr. Davis had owned in New Orleans suffered severe damage during Hurricane Ida. “We had to gut the house and sell it,” Mr. Davis said.
In October 2021, the East Coast offered a reprieve. Mr. Davis was recruited to be the director of outreach and alumni engagement for Cornell Tech in Manhattan, a part of Cornell University, the position he still holds.
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Mr. Davis proposed on March 3, 2022, Dr. Beuttler’s birthday, while visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras.
Dr. Beuttler was in his pajamas in bed after a day of work. First, Mr. Davis gave him a cupcake and then he asked Dr. Beuttler to marry him after presenting him with a ring he had ordered for his birthday.
Before their wedding, Dr. Beuttler accepted a position as a dermatologist at Modern Dermatology in Westport, Conn. The couple moved to their current home in Greenwich, Conn., last August.
“Over time,” Dr. Beuttler said, “we’ve learned that home is people. It’s the relationships you make. It isn’t a structure.” The couple have no immediate plans to move again, however.
Mr. Davis and Dr. Beuttler were married Jan. 21 at Galeriè de Galatoire, an events space recently opened by Galatoire’s restaurant in New Orleans.
New Orleans holds special meaning for both men. Mr. Davis’s family moved to New Orleans in 1997 from Princeton, N.J. And while Dr. Beuttler grew up in Ventura, Calif., his mother is from New Orleans and his maternal grandmother was born in the city’s French Quarter. They chose their wedding date because it was the birthday of Dr. Beuttler’s grandmother.
Rabbi Katie Bauman of Touro Synagogue in New Orleans officiated the ceremony. The reception was a New Orleans-style party, Dr. Beuttler said, with about 215 guests. The couple asked guests to test for Covid before arriving and offered colorful N95 masks at the door.
Mr. Davis’s mother spent weeks making decorations. “It felt like a Mardi Gras ball,” he said.
“The dance floor was like looking out at the ocean,” Mr. Davis said. “Everyone moving together and having a good time. I couldn’t even see the end of it. It was so wonderful.”
