Jennifer and Michael Zukewich at booth number 1.

Love in John and Jackie Kennedy’s Camelot is the stuff of legend—literally.

The story of the couple’s engagement is disputed. Some say that JFK popped the question over the phone (others claim he sent a telegram) to girlfriend Jacqueline Bouvier in London while she was there covering the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II for the Washington Times Herald. Another version says he proposed at Boston’s Omni Parker House hotel, in a restaurant near the press room where friends threw his bachelor party and where he made his first speech at six years old.

Yet one rumor sends Kennedy fans, history buffs and romantics straight to the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and N Street, Northwest. Martin’s Tavern, an intimate spot in the heart of Georgetown, says its booth number three is the where the Kennedys got engaged. And fourth-generation owner Billy Martin says the Kennedy clan has thrown its weight behind the story.

A haunt for the nation’s political elite in its heyday, Martin’s is known for food, service, and a clientele that never changes. In its 75 years, the restaurant has served every president from Harry Truman to George W. Bush, and the staff is itching to get Barack Obama through the doors.

Brijana and Frank Anderson might have been opposed to President Bush, but they owe him a thank-you for their fateful meeting.

Early on the morning of January 20, 2005, Brijana had made her way down to the Mall to take part in an Inauguration Day protest against the reelection of President Bush. A group called Turn Your Back on Bush planned to turn its back when the President’s motorcade went by in the parade.

As the group went through security and lined up to reach the parade route, Brijana, an ESOL teacher in Fairfax County who went in protest of the No Child Left Behind Act, caught the attention of Frank, a fellow protestor. “I laid eyes on him at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue,” says Brijana, 28. “I noticed a cool-looking guy about ten people back in line wearing an ear-flapped aviator’s cap and yellow Bono sunglasses. I thought, ‘Hey, that guy’s looking at me. Oh, it’s probably because I’m looking at him!’ ”

Did you or someone you know go looking for love in the "In Search Of" ads in The Washingtonian?

We're looking for stories about personal experiences, dates gone right or very, very wrong, and marriages that started from an ad in The Washingtonian.

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Twenty years ago, Shayna Stillman was flipping through the September issue of The Washingtonian and stopped on page 306. At the bottom of the page were 41 words that would change her life.

“A TALL SLIM HANDSOME BLUE-EYED SWM—with cheerful disposition, honest, charming, athletic, well-off with varied interests ISO unattached woman under 40 who is very attractive, generous, intelligent, successful, caring with sunny personality who wants to turn friendship into romance.”

After she separated from her first husband, Shayna—a longtime Washingtonian subscriber—would thumb through the personal ads at the back of the magazine. She’d answered a few, but nothing had panned out, so she took a break. But when September 1988 arrived with the fresh-start feeling of fall, she decided to give it another try, and that’s when she found the 41-word ad. “It focused on personal qualities rather than specific likes that generally end up sounding somewhat trite,” says Shayna, 58, who would circle the ads she liked and write a letter next to each, grading it from A to F.

This one got a circle and a big “A.” So she sat down and wrote a letter to the tall, slim, handsome, blue-eyed SWM. She told him a little about herself, her philosophy on life, and how she liked being active and surrounding herself with positive people. She dropped the letter into the mailbox that same day.

Photo by Jennifer Smoose

“Meet me on the corner of Seventh Street and New York Avenue at 7:30,” Aidan O’Connor told Connie Dougherty just after Christmas last year.

That’s odd, Connie thought. She knew they were seeing a play that night, but she couldn’t think of what theater was around there.

When she arrived, Aidan led her half a block before he stopped in front of a tiny venue called the Warehouse. They walked into the near-empty lobby and waited. Where is everyone? Connie wondered.

Fifteen minutes later, a man came around the corner. “We’re ready,” he said, leading them into the theater.

When he drew back the curtain, Connie saw a stage, a sound guy, a camera guy—and two seats.

“I was so confused,” says Connie, who works as a legislative director for a congressman. “We hadn’t exchanged Christmas presents, so I thought maybe he had gotten us some private viewing of a play.”

Photo by Jennifer Smoose

On May 17, 2006, Benjamin Okeke was on a flight from Baltimore to Boston, dripping with sweat and clutching his chest. The other passengers stared. Was this man having a heart attack?

He wasn’t—he was terrified. In about two hours, Benjamin would be asking his girlfriend, Angelique Manning, to marry him. For the past month, he had kept the cushion-cut diamond in a bulletproof, 007-style briefcase. But when airport security wouldn’t let the briefcase through, he had to move the ring to his left shirt pocket. He clutched the pocket tight and waited to land.

Benjamin, a Colorado native, and Angelique, who grew up in DC, met in 2003 at a law conference in Puerto Rico. There they discovered they were both students at Howard University’s School of Law—and that they both attended DC’s St. Augustine Catholic Church and lived two blocks from each other.

After one night on the Puerto Rican beach, talking and looking at the moon, Angelique knew Benjamin was the one. After three years of dating, Benjamin knew, too. He also knew he couldn’t propose on a holiday or anniversary—that was too predictable—so in early 2006, he shut his eyes, pointed at the calendar, and landed on the May date. He bought a ticket to Boston, where Angelique was working, and hatched his plan.

In high school, Blake Keeley knew only a few things about Scott Doyle: He was her friend’s older brother, he played lacrosse, and he was very, very cute.

“Scott went to Georgetown Prep, where my dad and brother went to school, and I went to Holton-Arms, an all-girls school,” she says. “But I had never met him.”