How We Met
Brian and I met on his birthday, February 9th, 2001. We were both students at the University of Maryland; I was a sophomore and Brian was a freshman. I had gone to my friend's dorm to hang out, and Brian, who lived a few doors down from my friend, came by to hang out for a bit. I thought he was really cute, and once he left, I begged my friend to go get him and make him come back. Unbeknownst to me, however, my friend wanted to ask me out that night, and he was a little upset that I was so taken with Brian. After some screaming, crying, and a few intense discussions, Brian and I went on our first date a few days later (to the McDonald's in the student union!), and we've been together ever since! We had some rocky times in college, but since 2003 have been going strong.
Currently, I'm in graduate school (for nursing) in Boston, and Brian is living in Baltimore and working for the federal government. We've been apart since August 2007 and it's definitely a challenge, but next year I'll graduate (3 weeks before the wedding!) and move back to Baltimore.
How He Proposed
I came home to Baltimore for a long weekend in October 2008, at Brian's suggestion. He made plans to go out to dinner in Little Italy on Saturday night, and I was very suspicious, because he's not good at making plans in advance. He also wanted us to dress up, which is quite a change from our usual date attire! Saturday afternoon, he told me we were stopping at Federal Hill Park (my favorite place in the city) to take pictures at sunset before dinner. This made me very suspicious, as we'd done that numerous times while I was living there. We got to the park around 6:30, and it was pretty crowded. We walked around for awhile, taking in the view and enjoying the nice weather. Brian took a bunch of pictures of me and kept having me move around to different areas of the park. I was getting impatient and finally he said "Let's go sit over there" and pointed to a bench away from the edge of the park. I thought, 'this is it!'...but it wasn't. After a few minutes, Brian got up and said we should start heading to dinner. I was so disappointed, because I really thought he was going to propose! As we were walking, Brian suddenly stopped and said "I haven't been completely honest with you about why we're here", and I said "I knew it!" and broke out into a huge grin. He got down on 1 knee, said some stuff we can't remember now, and asked me to marry him. I said yes and then asked to see the ring :) It was beautiful-he did a great job!
We had a great dinner in Little Italy, and as we walked to the car, Brian turned to me and said "Where do we park for this?"-and pointed to the Marriott Waterfront hotel! I was so excited because I've always wanted to stay there! Our room had a ridiculous view of the harbor and city, and the next morning, we had brunch in Federal Hill with my best friend, who lives in Pittsburgh but was in town for the weekend. It was such a surprise!
