Derek and Kayla both live and work in Washington, DC — Kayla at the State Department and Derek at the Department of Defense. Though Kayla had been emailing Derek and his coworker for months on a work-related matter, Derek never responded, automatically filing away emails from “that State Department girl.” Their paths finally crossed in person at a NATO meeting in Brussels, Belgium. Seated at the far end of a crowded dinner table, Derek spotted a beautiful woman walking up the stairs to join the group. For the rest of the evening, all he could think about was meeting her. When dinner finally ended, he worked up the courage to ask her to grab a drink. Kayla respectfully demurred, saying, “I’m really jet lagged — not tonight” to the man who had just over-enthusiastically shaken her hand. To Derek’s dismay, the real love story began later that week, when the two visited an art gallery together. In the months following, work took them on unexpected adventures around the world — hiking through Tongariro National Park in New Zealand, exploring historic Riga, Latvia (including the site of the first Christmas tree), and climbing the pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico City before ending the day at a lucha libre match — all while getting at least some work done along the way. In April 2026, after a picnic in the Italian Alps overlooking Lake Como, Derek asked Kayla to marry him. Born and raised in Tiburon, Kayla is so excited to bring the love of her life home to tie the knot.