Who: Ann Dugourd (designer and co-founder Ooh! La, La! Couture, a girls’ clothing company) and Frederic Dugourd (president and founder, iMarket4U, marketing consulting services)

Relationship Status: We will celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary this year, our 21st anniversary since we met, and we have two beautiful children, Chloe and Dylan.

Why were you there?

Ann: It was 1993, and I had just graduated from Cornell University and decided to backpack around Europe with friends for several weeks. At the end of the trip, we stayed in Paris to study French at the Sorbonne. Although we had just arrived in Paris, we had been away from the U.S. for over a month. We decided to go to celebrate July 4th at Le Violon Dingue, at an American fraternity basement-style bar located behind the Pantheon in the Latin Quarter at 46 Rue Montagne Sainte Genevieve.

Were you looking for love?  

Fred: I was out of a serious relationship for months and started to give up finding the right person. Who would have known…?

When you first met, what did you think about each other?

Fred: It was a random chain of events. My friends and I used to hang out at the French bar up the street. Up until that day, we had never set foot in this “American bar, Le Violon Dingue.” We thought it was full of English-speaking guys and not a great place to meet girls. However, it being July 4th we decided on something new: to check it out. After a few beers, my friend Francois was chatting up the girls. Since his charm was not getting him anywhere, Francois introduced me to Annie. Despite our language barrier, we spent hours conversing about our lives with my very basic English, acting things out, and sketching out drawings.