Brendan and Rachele technically ‘met’ on 8/10/14 when Brendan slid into Rachele’s DMs on a dating app saying, ‘Hey, how are you! Tall and very pretty, great combo :) I'm Brendan.’ After chatting a ton over the next 2 weeks, they decided to meet for a drink in downtown Annapolis at O’Brien’s. Rachele got there first (a miracle in and of itself!), waiting for him inside the entrance and when Brendan arrived and saw her for the first time, he already knew there could never be anyone else. Happy hour drinks turned into walking to McGarvey’s for dinner, which turned into inviting their friends Missy and Robbie to meet them out to continue the night at Pusser’s. That turned into a first kiss on the dock, a 3AM IHOP breakfast, a PG sleepover, and finally culminated in Rachele and Missy waking up and getting to meet Brendan’s uncle, mom, and sister unexpectedly the next morning!

Brendan and Rachele has spoken quite a bit about getting engaged, including going ring shopping together not long before the proposal, however the ring itself was not going to arrive until October so Brendan found a way to make it a suprise. Every year, Rachele’s family goes to the Outer Banks to spend a week relaxing and enjoying each others company. Brendan knows what a special time that is for the family and wanted to propose to Rachele there, surrounded by the people she loves most, ring or not. He spoke to her parents halfway through the trip and on the last night, orchastrated a photo session where everyone got dressed up for pictures on the beach together. The catch was - it was SO windy and no one wanted to go down to the beach! With Rachele’s mom’s help everyone was eventually corraled down there and at the end of all the other photos, while they were getting pictures taken, he got down on one knee and proposed!