As with all great love stories, this was a classic saga of false starts, lessons learned, miles traveled, one-sided cheese aversions, and hiking/golfing adventures. Chapter I: The Introduction As new students at the Darden School of Business at UVA, Pat and Katie (separately) went to a bar (the Biltmore) the first weekend of classes to meet their new classmates. Pat offered Katie the official MBA greeting gift, a Bud Light tall boy. She politely declined. And so it begins. Chapter II: The Darden Registrar Steps In Katie and Patrick come to find out that they have assigned seats next to one another, and they will sit next to each other for the next 6 months for a riveting, roller coaster classroom experience. Chapter III: Pat Hatches a Plan By becoming the "Athletic Rep" of the Darden Section C class, he knew that Katie, a former collegiate athlete, would be forced to interact with him. The plan works. Chapter IV: Katie Gets Artistic In a particularly... challenging... economics class, Katie channeled her supply and demand curve frustrations into sticky-note based doodles. She knew that these works of art would be appreciated by her seatmate, Pat. He proudly displayed these quickly accumulating testaments to their flirtations. Chapter V: Merger of Equals Eventually this cat and mouse game blossomed into a relationship, and with commitment, support, and hard work, it blossomed into love.

Pat surprised Katie with a trip to Charleston, SC, in late February, 2020. Katie knew something was up when Pat, a night owl, said they had to get up early that Saturday morning. He took her to Pitt Street Bridge, a peninsular footpath overlooking the ocean. As the wind whipped around them, he got down on one knee and asked her to marry him. (She said yes.) They spent the rest of the time in Charleston walking around in the sun, calling friends and family to tell them the news, and toasting to their future together.