How We Met
Ryan and Katie met over a work project during the winter of 2006-2007, shortly after Katie was hired by their soon-to-be close friend, Matt Lally. Ryan was the engineer project lead, and Katie was writing the marketing communications for the product launch. Ryan thought Katie was a cute and impressionable 23-year-old, and Katie thought Ryan was a web dork who liked weird indie rock bands, Veronica Mars, and sweet potato fries.
Ryan and Katie became friends pretty quickly, and Ryan converted Katie to his indie ways by making her mix CDs of his favorite songs and binge-watching Veronica Mars with her on the weekends. Katie thought he was the absolute nicest guy, from spending a Saturday decorating Easter eggs with her little sister (who was 12 at the time!) to generously picking her up from the airport on more than one occasion while they were “just friends.” It was after one of these airport trips (after 5 months of being friends) that Ryan made his move: he kissed Katie in her parents’ kitchen, immediately followed by the words “that was about 6 weeks overdue.”
A clandestine work relationship followed, with secret IM conversations and holding pinkies while riding to lunch in the car with their group of work friends. This secret lasted approximately 3 months until Ryan told their work friends the truth over lunch while Katie was at a Handel family reunion in North Carolina. This confession was met with a definitive “yeah, we knew you liked each other before you guys did,” a very anti-climatic, but positive response. The rest was history.
The Proposal
Ryan and Katie were packing for their trip to Kevin (Ryan’s groomsman and friend of 30 years) and Nicole’s wedding in Italy in June 2013, when Katie told Ryan she was going for a run before they got on the plane that afternoon. Ryan offered to go with her, which should have been the first clue that something was amiss. (Ryan does not like to run with people, for the most part.) Happily, Katie agreed, since she is always trying to get Ryan to run with her. They were running Katie’s regular 3-mile loop along the Mystic River in Arlington/Somerville, when on the way back, Ryan grabbed his leg and stopped running. Worried that she had pushed him too hard and that he’d never run with her again, Katie turned and concernedly asked if he was okay. Fiddling with something in his fingers, Ryan looked up at Katie and asked “will you run with me forever?” Completely confused, Katie again asked, “wait, are you okay?” a couple times before she realized that this was a proposal and Ryan had an engagement ring in his hands. After answering affirmatively to Ryan’s question “is that a yes? because I’d like to stand up!”, Katie and Ryan walked hand-in-hand the last mile back to their home and headed out for their week-long vacation in Europe. Not a bad way to celebrate an engagement.
It should be noted that Ryan was very clever to pop the question *before* the romantic European vacation so as not to stress Katie the entire trip. Boy, does he know her well!
