It all started in 2000 when Colleen and Tom were freshmen at Paul VI Catholic High School. The school’s computer club ran a Datamatch program that matched people with potential love interests for Valentine’s Day. Tom and Colleen were matched, although neither knew who the other person was. Fast forward a year and a half and they found themselves in the same Chemistry class as lab partners. This would have been a much more endearing story (get it? They had chemistry together…okay, sorry) except Tom was a total deadbeat lab partner and forced the much more responsible Colleen to do all of the work. Sometime around then, they also got set up for a school dance together by their friend Carmen and they became best friends. Even though all of their friends and Tom’s mom insisted that they would be a great couple, they stayed just friends throughout the end of high school.

Even though they went to different colleges (Tom – eventually – to the University of Virginia and Colleen to Villanova) they stayed close, talking on the phone at least once a week when gone at college and hanging out during the summers. After graduating from college, Tom went to Russia and Colleen went to an even more exotic locale, Wilmington, Delaware. The next summer, they  were both at home and saw each other almost every day. Tom quickly realized that everyone had been right and that Colleen was a great catch. Of course, he waited until going back to Russia to tell Colleen about his feelings for her, but she agreed to give the whole dating-your-best-friend thing a chance and they started dating.

The next four and a half years together went well, with a lot of good memories and only a couple of “wait, you guys are dating??” questions from former PVI classmates. There have been some big changes over the years, with Colleen starting a career as a nurse and Tom going back to school, but the biggest and best change has been the transition from being best friends to being a couple. Last May, Tom took Colleen to the restaurant in Old Town Alexandria where they went on their first date. If that wasn’t obvious enough, Tom’s general nervousness and the ring box in his pocket tipped Colleen off that something was up. They walked down to the riverfront and Tom asked her to marry him. Ignoring the rain and the pack of teenagers standing 15 feet away from them on the dock, Colleen said yes.