Ryan & Hal in Snohomish, WA

When Hal popped the question, an astonished Ryan immediately accepted, and one year later they were married in a romantic garden ceremony. The Bride Ryan Perin The Groom Hal Watkin The Date August 27 Ryan Perin, who is now 26 and an investigator, and Hal Watkin, 29 and a student, caught each other’s eye while pumping gas at a local station, but didn’t exchange so much as a hello. Neither thought much of it, and that same night Ryan attended a party with a friend at “some guy’s house.” That guy ended up being Hal, and when the two bumped into each other again they had an instant icebreaker. Later that night Hal asked for Ryan’s number. “I had to give it to him -- this was our second-chance meeting,” she remembers. The two soon went on their first date -- dinner and a movie -- and after talking for awhile realized that they not only had mutual friends, but they grew up just 15 minutes apart from one another! After five years, Hal decided to propose. But before he made it official, he requested the permission of Ryan’s mother. Ecstatic, she convinced him to propose that same day at a family barbecue.