We woke up at Smith Mountain Lake on September 28, 2019. Later that morning I was presenting at a seminar about community associations and Brian had driven 5 hours the night before to come join me. After a morning of me explaining how to amend governing documents and cleaning up where Brian spilled coffee all over my law firm’s tablecloth, we set off for Richmond for the rest of the weekend. We stopped for lunch in Lynchburg, lazily making our way to RVA—or so I thought. When we got to Richmond, it felt like it was 90+ degrees and humid, which was unseasonably warm for late September. After spending 3+ hours in the car, I was ready for a nap in the air conditioning, but Brian wanted to go on a walk (which should have been a clue that something was up!). Begrudgingly, I got up and we set off to walk around the downtown. We were sweating, and Brian seemed too excited to be walking in the heat—which is not very Brian-like. At one point, Brian made a hard left and set off down E Main St toward the Virginia Capitol. When we reached Capitol Square, Brian was very upset that there were orange traffic cones lined up on the steps where we sat exactly one year before. Convinced that “they condemned our steps,” Brian walked us towards a bench to sit down. After some sentimental words, a few comical moments, and a very important question, Brian proposed! The steps outside of the Virginia Star Capitol will always be one of our favorite places—it’s where we first fell in love and where we officially decided to start a life together. -Lauren

Short story: We eloped! Long story: Wedding planning is stressful enough under normal circumstances. Add a global pandemic, state-wide restrictions on gathering and just a whole bunch of uncertainty and it becomes unbearably stressful. We decided we didn’t want to keep putting our life and plans together on hold while we waited to see when it would be feasible to have the wedding we wanted. So we made the bold decision to elope, and in true elopement fashion we told (almost) no one. Lauren called the judge she clerked for and asked him if he would perform the ceremony and we asked our friend Patrick to be our witness. Patrick originally introduced us, so we couldn’t think of anyone else to be our special witness. On Sunday, August 29, 2021 we stood in Judge Newman’s Arlington living room with Patrick watching on and said we do. Not exactly how we initially pictured getting married, but we wouldn’t have it any other way now.