About The Stars

Brian - Brian was born in beautiful Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was raised on a steady diet of Skyline Chili and LaRosa's Pizza - giving him the chiseled physique you see today. He spent the best four years of his life at the University of Dayton before returning to Cincinnati where he currently works at Fifth Third Bank as a Conversion Manager (if you can believe it, the job is actually less exciting than it sounds!).

Brian's current obsessions include the Super Bowl-bound Cincinnati Bengals, Lost (the show that earned Brian international fame... but no fortune via his blog), the Dave Matthews Band, and Kate Brown. His hobbies include running, reading, writing, and spending many a lazy afternoon at the Delta House pool.

(Note: Brian does not typically refer to himself in the third person.)



Kate - Kate was born in Lorain, OH (Cleveland area), grew up in South Bend (despite pledging allegiance to OSU), went to high school at St. Ursula in Toledo, graduated from the University of Dayton, then moved to Columbus for a stint before moving to the "Queen City" of Cincinnati. I guess you could say she's been working her way around Ohio (and parts of Indiana)!

For the past 4 years, Kate has worked as a Client Strategist for Empower MediaMarketing, a media planning & buying agency located in the rolling Cincinnati hills of Mt. Adams. Basically, that means she helps her clients decide how to best spend their advertising dollars by talking to the right people at the right time in the right place! When she's not "working for the man", she volunteers as the chair of the Ohio-South Hugh O'Brian Leadership conference (HOBY), which is a national organization that holds four-day leadership seminars for high school sophomores.

In her free time, Kate enjoys traveling (especially on trips to see family in Seattle or to visit Europe), swimming, playing volleyball, camping, and spoiling her two adorable kittens, Riley and Callie. Her favorite TV show (thanks to her wonderful fiance) is LOST, with Grey's Anatomy a close second. Her favorite movie of all time is "When Harry Met Sally."

(Note: Kate does not typically wear crowns.)




How We Met... - Scholars maintain that the actual date and time of the first meeting between Kate and Brian was lost long ago - but their best estimations put it somewhere during the sophomore year of college, in the magical year of 2000. Although merely acquaintances, Kate clearly had influence over Brian from the start. While working at the UD Blend, she somehow convinced Brian (who has never had a drop of coffee touch his lips) not only to buy a coffee mug... but to buy the more expensive stainless steel coffee mug - which probably has been used less than 10 times over the past seven years.

But the two really got to know each other during what both would agree were the best three months of their lives - the summer they spent studying abroad in Augsburg, Germany in 2002. The two shared classes, beers, and oversized pretzels while traveling through Europe and became good friends.

However, the first spark of romance wouldn't occur for another two years. With both Kate and Brian working in Cincinnati, they happened to run into each other one evening at a local watering hole (Mt. Lookout Tavern). Brian had recently illegally downloaded (shh!) the first two episodes of Lost months before they would air on television, and had made it his goal to convince as many people as possible of the greatness of the show - Kate was no exception. After the bar closed, he convinced her to journey back to the Delta House for a sneak peek of the show... and before it was over Brian snuck in a kiss.

Over the next few weeks, Kate reluctantly agreed to let Brian hang out with her, and over time he slowly wore down her defenses, making her realize that he was more than just her traveling buddy from Germany. The rest, as they say, is history.

About the Pitch

When Engaged: Brian proposed to Kate on June 29, 2007 at approximately 8:10 pm. He later proposed at 8:15 pm after Kate realized she didn't fully "take it all in" the first time.


How it Happened: Kate was planning on taking Brian out for a "fancy dinner" ("to a restaurant without TVs", as she put it) as a thank you for Brian's help in her recent move to a new house. Brian, ever the clever one, realized this would provide the perfect opportunity for the engagement since Kate happened to also pay for their first date together (also, both would be in nice clothes, making for better pictures when shown to family and friends).

Keeping with the "circle of life" theme, Brian determined that the Delta House was the perfect place for the engagement, since it was the site of their first kiss. The only problem was, as many of you know, the Delta House is far from romantic (or clean). Brian spent the afternoon cleaning the place, rolling out a white runner, lighting hundreds of candles, and sprinkling the floor with rose petals. On the DVD player in the living room, the Old 97's song "Question" was playing on repeat (somewhat ripping off Scrubs). In his bedroom, the Ben Folds song "The Luckiest" (their song) was also playing on repeat, setting the tone. To top it off, he wrote a poem about the journey of their relationship together and placed each verse in a frame along the path leading from the front door to his bedroom.

Upon opening the bedroom door, Kate found Brian at the end of the path. He got down on one knee and proposed to which Kate responded "No way" and began jumping up and down. A confused Brian asked "Is that a yes?" to which she replied "Of course!" before adding "What took you so long?" (Let the record show that the first word Kate said when Brian proposed was actually NO.)

After Kate finally realized what was happening, she mentioned that she hadn't listened to the music, read the poem, or noticed the cleanliness of the Delta House on her first trip through, so she promptly returned the ring to Brian, went back into the living room, and walked through the setup a second time. Fortunately for Brian, with the second proposal she immediately accepted.

(Footnote: Knowing that he would get hundreds of questions from family, friends, and strangers about the nature of the engagement, Brian decided to play a trick on everyone by pretending to propose to Kate via his Blog. That way, when people asked him how he did it, he could simply say "just read the Blog", preventing him from having to reveal his sensitive side and increasing readership of the site. It also brought the two numerous and strange well-wishes from the Internet community, many of whom actually believe Brian proposed via the Blog. He is still working on how to find a way to get his readers to give wedding presents without any of them finding out his real identity.)

Later that evening, upon their return from dinner, the Delta House would reveal its true colors, as Kate and Brian returned to find a cockroach running across the flower petals strewn across the ground. How romantic!