Alix Leah Udelson and Justin Chase LaPoten were married Aug. 3 at Meadowood Napa Valley, a resort in St. Helena, Calif. Rabbi Oren J. Postrel officiated
Ms. Udelson, 29, is a labor and employment associate in the Houston office of Blank Rome, a Philadelphia law firm. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and received a law degree from the South Texas College of Law.
She is a daughter of Randi M. Udelson and Donald C. Udelson of Houston.
Mr. LaPoten, 30, works in Houston as a partner in Badr Investments, a London-based office of Amin Badr-El-Din, a former adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi. Mr. LaPoten is also a partner in Escondido Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund. He graduated cum laude from Texas Christian University.
He is a son of Fern R. LaPoten of Lansdale, Pa., and the late Randy K. LaPoten.
The couple were introduced in October 2014 through the dating app JSwipe, but told most people they met through mutual friends.
“At the time you could register through Facebook, and it would show Facebook friends you shared with the other person,” Ms. Udelson said, who technically said meeting through mutual friends was “still kind of true.”
“I would not have gone out if we did not have one mutual friend,’’ she said. (One of them is the M.C. at their rehearsal dinner).
The couple went to a bar in Houston the next Saturday afternoon, and then out again that evening to another bar with some mutual friends.
“I just remember her incredible laugh,” Mr. LaPoten said. “I thought she was gorgeous, and we liked a lot of the same things.”
As they started going out, Ms. Udelson anxiously awaited results of the Texas bar, which were to be released in November, but Mr. LaPoten said he “just had a strong feeling she was going to pass.’’
“I knew that Justin was special when he sent me a bouquet congratulating me on passing the Texas bar exam before the results had even been announced,” she said. “He’s reinforced the confidence in me that I never had in myself.’’
Their different political differences also soon came to light.
“I’m George Conway and he’s Kellyanne,’’ said Ms. Udelson, referring to the White House counselor whose husband is an antagonist of her boss, President Trump. “At the end of the day we want the same things for our country. ”
There was no doubt of Ms. Udelson, and her family’s unwavering support for Mr. LaPoten as he went back and forth to Pennsylvania to visit his father, who had battled kidney cancer for 12 years, and was then in the last stages of the disease.
“He was my best friend in the entire world, Mr. LaPoten said. “It was the most tumultuous time in my life. She was the bright spot of warmth and love and made it a little easier.”
After his father died in April 2015, as a distraction Ms. Udelson suggested they dogsit a family friend’s French bulldog, and the next thing they knew they adopted a brindle French bulldog of their own, Oliver, which stayed at Mr. LaPoten’s townhouse.
It took another six months for Ms. Udelson to move in, and in August 2018 Mr. LaPoten proposed in their kitchen. It wasn’t until then that they started coming clean about meeting online, which had been a small source of embarrassment to the two.
“Frankly, I regret that I was ever that self-conscious,’’ she said. “It’s how people meet these days. Whenever someone says they met through a friend or a bar, I say ‘Oh, how old fashioned.”
“Now we totally embrace it and it’s part of our story,” Mr. LaPoten said.
