Nick and Fiona met in the least romantic place imaginable: a windowless basement wrestling gym at CU Boulder where Nick was teaching a tango class and Fiona was trying to learn tango and meet new friends. They formed a friendship and, along with some other crazy tango cats, spent three years having dinner parties, dancing at Cakes Studios and the Mercury Cafe, and attending tango dances across the country. Then in 2008 Fiona moved to Switzerland to pursue a job and Nick started traveling and teaching internationally. They went their separate ways...

Over the next eight years, Fiona and Nick would run into each other occasionally in Denver or London, where Fiona was living at the time. In 2016, after a tango class that Nick was teaching, they went out for dinner. In a windowless basement restaurant, over spaghetti carbonara, Nick told Fiona his true feelings. Fortunately, this windowless basement felt much more romantic.

Nick and Fiona were living together in Denver, but each time Nick went back to England for work he searched for the perfect engagement ring. He wanted a very special and specific ring, so he spent several years looking. Then, in December 2019, ten minutes before he had to leave for the airport, Nick found it! (In the basement of an antique shop). The ring was a Victorian code ring whose stones spell out a secret message. Nick carried this ring all the way back to Colorado and all the way to the top of a mountain to surprise Fiona with a proposal.