Some might find it bizarre to greet a man you’re meeting in person for the first time by kissing him on the lips. But that is precisely what happened when Alison Rose Greenberg and Barry Alan Loudis stood face-to-face.
The two had connected on Bumble and had their first conversation in December 2020.
“I was about to throw in the towel trying to find love on dating apps, so I decided to use the hell-scape of modern dating for good,” Greenberg said. She started using dating apps to canvass for Jon Ossoff, who was running in a Georgia U.S. Senate runoff election. The prompt on her Bumble profile read, “Ask me about politics.”
But then she came across the profile for Loudis, and, suddenly, she had more than the upcoming election on her mind. For one, she says, she was delighted he wasn’t holding a giant fish. “And, not for nothing, Barry had a great head of hair,” Greenberg said. “There was just something very me about his profile.”
They exchanged numbers within the first week and spoke via FaceTime every day. Speaking with Greenberg was “the first thing I wanted to do in the morning and the last thing at night,” Loudis said.
Because of the pandemic, nearly a month passed before they finally met in person. After both tested negative for Covid, they met at Greenberg’s house in Dunwoody, an Atlanta suburb, in January 2021.
They ordered takeout from LanZhou Ramen and watched the University of Alabama defeat Ohio State in the college football national championship game. Though neither attended the university, Greenberg said, “Barry has become a loyal Alabama fan over the years.”
They bonded over shared experiences, including their previous marriages and raising two children each. Neither planned to remarry.
When the two met, Greenberg was working on her first novel, “Bad Luck Bridesmaid,” about a woman who was questioning her own stance on marriage. “I was very much in my heroine’s mind-set,” Greenberg said. “Joke’s on us,” she added.
The pair became official two months later. But in September 2021, “we had a little break,” Greenberg said. “I said, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said, ‘I don’t think I can love anyone right now.’”
Louis said, “Alison was the first meaningful relationship coming out of a divorce, and I got overwhelmed.”
“So, I was done,” Greenberg said. “I told him, ‘Let’s take five weeks, no contact.’”
Three weeks later, Loudis texted Greenberg and asked if he could call her. She said yes. “I set the rule,” Greenberg said. “But the rom-com writer in me wanted him to break it.”
“I knew I screwed up,” Loudis said. “I didn’t listen, but I knew I had to take my shot.”
The next morning, Loudis hand-delivered a letter to Greenberg. “We both said I love you that day,” Greenberg said. “We’ve been together ever since.”
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Greenberg and Loudis continue to maintain homes in Atlanta — she in Dunwoody, and he in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood. “He lives with me when he doesn’t have his kids. It works for us,” Greenberg said.
Greenberg, 42, is an author and screenwriter of romantic comedies, currently adapting her novels, “Bad Luck Bridesmaid” (2022) and “Maybe Once, Maybe Twice” (2023), for the screen. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communication from the University of Southern California and has two children from a previous marriage: Zoey, 11, and Max, 14. She was born in New York City and grew up in both Knoxville, Tenn., and Atlanta.
Loudis, 45, is the president of Blackwing Advisors and the owner of Softek Awnings in Doraville, Ga. He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Kansas. He also has two children: Sloan, 13, and Saylor, 10. He was born and raised in Springfield, Mo.
Loudis proposed in April 2025, when he and Greenberg were vacationing in Surfside, Fla. While having drinks at the Champagne Bar in the Four Seasons, where Greenberg’s parents live part-time, Loudis surprised her with a read-through of a rewrite he did of the New Year’s Eve scene from “When Harry Met Sally…,” Greenberg’s favorite film.
“This is a movie where two characters grow into themselves and into adulthood, and alongside their maturation, they go from enemies to friends to lovers,” Greenberg said. “It’s everything I aspire to write.”
The scene ended with him asking her to marry him.
Her answer was an unscripted yes.
The two were married on June 6 in the Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, at the bride’s parents’ home, affectionately known as Greenberg Gardens. Rabbi Bradley G. Levenberg of Temple Sinai Atlanta, who also oversaw Loudis’s conversion to Judaism, officiated before 114 guests.
At midnight, the couple and their four children jumped into the pool. Afterward, the couple got matching Roman numeral VI tattoos — a nod to their blended family and their wedding date.
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