One day coming home from work, Katie found one of the good parking spots for her Oakland apartment. As she was getting out of the car, she looked across the street at her front door and saw a group of guys walking down the sidewalk. She could see the tallest one clearly and thought "He's cute." A couple weeks later out with some friends at Carson City Saloon, Katie saw the same guy out with a group of friends. With some liquid courage she boldly walked up and said "Hi, I know you," which was met with a "Uhhh, no you don't?" "Yes I do, you live on Ward Street." "How do you know that?" "I live on Ward Street too!!!" They exchanged numbers and went on with their nights. The next morning, Nate texted Katie and they continued to text for a few weeks while Nate went on vacation with his family to Sunset Beach and the following week Katie went on vacation with her family to Ocean Isle Beach. Once they were both back in Oakland for the fall semester at Pitt, Nate took Katie on a date to the Schenley Park Overlook, and the rest, as they say, is history.

One random January morning Nate texted Katie that one of his colleagues was going to ask her to go get their nails done together. Katie was excited, but didn't think much of it and they made plans for Friday afternoon manicures. When Katie left, Nate was adamant that she let him know when she was finished and coming home. Katie assumed it was because they were going to dinner with Nate's parents and he wanted to make sure he was ready. As Katie was walking into their apartment building, she pulled her phone out and saw a text from Nate asking her to stop at the grocery store for a Gatorade. Katie figured since she was already out of the car, she would say hi to Nate and then go to the grocery store. When she opened the door to their apartment, it was completely transformed, the lights were off and the blinds shut, but there were over 100 candles lit. There were roses on the counter and rose petals on the ground. Katie took one look at Nate and knew what was happening. Nate asked Katie to marry her and shaking and crying she said Yes! It was then she realized there was a chair on top of the ottoman with the camera positioned carefully. Nate explained that he wanted to get a video of the proposal, but needed more time to press play on the camera, which was why he asked her to grab a Gatorade. He didn't get the video, but it didn't matter because it was perfect.