From ‘Letters Across the Sea’ to Marriage in Under a Year

Eight months after they met, Alison Michelle Eggert and Raylynne Michelle Perez were married. Plenty of family members and friends had wondered why so soon. The answer was twofold.

“The first is that we both feel like we’ve waited long enough to find this love and don’t want to wait anymore,” Ms. Eggert said. “But the second is that we are keenly aware that our legal right to marry each other could disappear at any time.”

The two, who lived in Houston, matched on Bumble on June 7, 2023. Ms. Eggert had joined the dating app that very day, and Ms. Perez’s subscription, which she had no plans to renew, was set to expire three days later.

They immediately began messaging through the app, and then texted each other three days later. On June 11, Ms. Perez left on a weeklong cruise with her family.

“I was so excited for the cruise until I met this woman,” Ms. Perez said. “My family was so unhappy because all I was doing was messaging her. They still give me a hard time about it.”

Texting proved to be challenging while Ms. Perez was at sea. So, the two begin emailing one another. “We were writing letters across the sea,” Ms. Perez said. “It was like ‘Pride and Prejudice,’” Ms. Eggert said. “I hope the sea is treating you well,” she wrote to Ms. Perez.