He was an intern and she was a nursing student at UVA Hospital. Though it was the end of the road for their patient, it was only the beginning for them. Brian looked up from the recently departed body and said, quite confidently, "His heart may no longer be beating, but mine is racing for you." Just kidding. They met in a bar.

Though Brian and Aubrey were introduced to each other by a mutual friend, they arrived at the bar separately that night. Brian had just come off of a rough week at the hospital and wanted to spend a chill night in with a friend who was visiting from out of town. A California girl through and through, Aubrey had just about had it with the February cold and was just about to go to bed at 8:30 on a Friday night. Needless to say, the odds were stacked against these two that they would end up going out that night, let alone find themselves in the same place at the same time. Now, as a nursing student, Aubrey had been warned about "those arrogant [expletive deleted] residents" who like to chase after nurses. So she was wary when a stranger who said he was an intern at the hospital started talking to her. To make matters worse, Aubrey was not thrilled about being out that night, and now that she was, all she wanted was one beer. But a very confident young doctor was determined to make her acquaintance, at great cost: every time she turned to him to answer a flirtatious question, that was when the bartender would walk by, and she missed her chance to order. This did not sit well. Of course, Aubrey had no idea that Brian was merely putting on a show of over-confidence that is characteristic of males in their twenties, and once they and the other friends at the bar sat down together, she quickly realized that Brian was nothing more than the adorable nerd (with plenty of well-deserved confidence) that she loves today.

After ransacking the house in an attempt to locate a ring that I could use to get Aubrey's ring size, I settled on trying to get it from her hand. One early morning, I quietly slipped a twist tie around her (what I later discovered to be) right ring finger and approximated her ring size. After a restless two days of calling (literally) every jewelry store in town and placing 7-8 rings on hold, I finally found the one I knew should would like. The jeweler looked at me skeptically as I proudly handed the twist tie to him and asked him to resize the ring. I initially planned on proposing at the restaurant/bar where we met, but five days before the proposal, she was sitting next to me watching the episode of Friends where Chandler is going to propose to Monica in a restaurant but is interrupted by Richard, one of Monica’s old boyfriends. Aubrey chuckled and said, “Proposing in a restaurant is so lame and cliché.” My face remained stoic, but internally, I was panicking. The next day, I made a few urgent phone calls, and after asking my entire residency class’ opinion on where to do proposals, I settled on the beautiful Veritas Winery. After a few furtive conversations with a photographer in my upstairs closet, I had a plan. The rest is history.