At William & Mary, I was good friends with Patrick's twin brother and his fiancée. Our college friends and I held an engagement party for them in the spring of my junior year. Fortunately only half an hour away at Christopher Newport University, Patrick had been invited to join in the celebration, and he and I met for the first time at the dining room table in that old, drafty house. We introduced ourselves, spent a few minutes talking about our love for birds and botany and biology, and we departed from the snack table feeling mutually understood. After the party, amidst clean-up and much joy (and dancing, on my part), my friend Virginia joked that it would be fun to be sisters-in-law if I really hit it off with Patrick. I laughed. She laughed and said she wasn't joking. That summer, I met Patrick again at his parents' house while spending time with his brother and my friend. The four of us were playing with the Wrights' newly adopted kittens when I realized that there were only two of us, and Patrick and I were suddenly trying not to make eye contact. I felt awkward and couldn't stop thinking about the seed Virginia planted in my head about the botanist who could make me her sister-in-law. In the fall, I received a text from Patrick, even though I had not given him my number. The text relayed friendship and a certain quality of awkward confidence that ensured I would accept the offer to hang out sometime. So we did. Again and again. These were some of the brightest spots of my senior year at W&M. Leaves turned and fell, we didn't get any snow, and the world started waking up again all while we were coffee shop hopping, reading his master's thesis research, showing each other our favorite restaurants and breweries, going to museums and antique stores and botanical gardens, playing with his new kitten (Oyster, whom we adore), birding and arguing about our life lists, and eventually doing things like going to Easter service at my parents' church, celebrating my college graduation with my family, and helping him move out of his grad school apartment. You know, it was just a casual friendship where I couldn't wait until the next time I got to see him. Very normal. I finished my B.S. at William & Mary, Patrick finished his M.S. at CNU, and summer came and went quickly with Patrick in the jungles of Costa Rica and myself in the temperate forests of the Blue Ridge Mountains. When each of us returned, we came back to spending time together like no time had passed. We each said it in our own ways, neither directly, that we missed each other. As soon as that was known, I started environmental work in West Virginia that would require me to be gone most of the time, and Patrick began teaching in Henrico. I drove a few hours every couple of weeks to come visit him in Richmond, and at this point I wasn't sure I could (truthfully) say this was casual for me anymore. In the fall, I received another text from Patrick, who used my number more than anyone else. The text relayed the hope of something more than friendship (I'm giddily kicking my feet writing this) and a familiar quality of awkward confidence that ensured I would accept the offer to talk about it sometime. So we did. Almost a year later, he asked me to marry him in the beautiful and blooming vegetable gardens of Agecroft Hall. I said "yeah." And here we are, getting married just a few years after that engagement party. Part of me wishes the Hannah in that old, drafty house knew she was meeting her future husband at the dining room table. The other part of me is glad, for once, that it was a surprise.