Julius Alan Schorzman and Louis Edward Morton were married June 14 at the Seattle Tennis Club in Seattle. Robert Barnhart, a friend of the couple who became a Universal Life minister for the event, officiated.
Mr. Schorzman (left), 40, is a senior business analyst in Seattle for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He graduated from the University of Washington.
He is a son of Donna Yule of Boise, Idaho, and the late Rex A. Schorzman.
Mr. Morton, who is 29 and known as Lue, is a pilot based in San Francisco for Alaska Airlines. He graduated from the University of North Dakota.
He is a son of Kathleen Marie Colombo and Patrick Joseph Morton of Seattle.
The couple met as teammates while playing for the Seattle Quake Rugby Football Club, an L.G.B.T.-inclusive rugby club, in May 2017. Mr. Schorzman had joined the team when Mr. Morton was away on a six-month airline assignment in Chicago.
“We met in a bar in Seattle after one of our team practices,” Mr. Morton said. “Our eyes just locked and I was awe-struck by his physical appearance. He was extremely handsome, and at 6-3 had an incredibly athletic build, I thought he was out of my league.”
They began a conversation, and it wasn’t long before Mr. Schorzman was awe-struck by what he called Mr. Morton’s “piloting adventures,” which included the story of a miraculous day in 2015 when Mr. Morton, a pilot who was then new to Alaska Airlines, was forced to ditch a Cirrus SR22 he was flying from California to Hawaii after a malfunction in the fuel system.
Mr. Morton told Mr. Schorzman that after deploying the aircraft’s parachute system and landing in the Pacific Ocean, he used the onboard life raft to wait for rescue from a nearby Holland America cruise ship.
“I was like ‘What? What was that? What did you just say?’” Mr. Schorzman recalled. “He kind of told me the story offhandedly, and I just sat there in shock thinking that this was the most interesting person in the world.”
They began dating immediately, and in September 2017, as a gift to Mr. Schorzman on his 30th birthday, Mr. Morton became his personal pilot for a day, taking Mr. Schorzman high in the sky for a 40-minute round-trip, private plane ride from King County International Airport to Astoria, Oregon.
“Julius was very nervous at first,” Mr. Morton said. “But he eventually calmed down and enjoyed the ride.”
Mr. Morton and Mr. Schorzman have since taken many other flights together, as passengers, to such destinations as New York, Vancouver, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin and Japan.
“I love every minute I spend with him,” Mr. Morton said of Mr. Schorzman. “He is quiet but very intelligent, and he has helped me grow as a person by often challenging my way of thinking and keeping me levelheaded, especially at times when work or any other problem creates stress in my life.”
During a tour in Europe in June 2018, Mr. Morton decided to propose to Mr. Schorzman, popping the question atop the Alaska Airlines pride float during the Seattle Pride Parade.
After Mr. Schorzman accepted Mr. Morton’s proposal, they traveled to Amsterdam to attend the 2018 International Gay Rugby’s Bingham Cup tournament.
“As a pilot, I often find myself in different places around the world and at times that can feel kind of lonely,” Mr. Morton said. “But when I’m with Julius, no matter where I am always feels like home.”
