We met at Ohio State University when our dorm suites were next door to each other. His mom is a teacher at my high school, and we found out we grew up 15 minutes from each other in West Chester, though we hadn't met until we moved up to Columbus. We began hanging out together regularly.

We'd been seeing each other for a couple of weeks casually when Stephanie told Brian she wanted him to be her boyfriend and Brian replied he'd already been calling her his girlfriend. We went on our first official date the next day.

We went to Michigan for a weekend at the lake with our dogs. Stephanie had an online final exam for her Master's program that she finished late in the evening. Afterward, we went out for dinner with our dogs. A little before midnight, Brian suggested we go out for a walk on the pier, but he needed to stop at the car first. He'd been carrying around his camera bag all weekend, even on our long hike on the sand dunes even though he wasn't using the camera. We walked to the end of the pier and right about midnight, Brian proposed. He told me then that he'd been carrying the ring around in the camera bag and wanted it close for when the time was right. The timing was perfect.