Photo by Jennifer Smoose

If John Paul Fawcett had met Juliette Niehuss a few months earlier, he might have asked her to dinner or a movie. But the timing wasn’t right. It was January 2000, and John, a senior at the University of Kansas, and Juliette, a junior at Amherst, had both just arrived in Egypt for a study-abroad program.

“Cultural restrictions make it so you can’t really go out on normal dates,” says Juliette, who grew up in DC. “You could go out and have ice cream, and maybe hold hands—but even that is kind of taboo.”

She and John were allowed to spend time together only in the dorm’s lobby or the study room. But during an orientation trip to Alexandria, Egypt, they stayed up talking one night over Arabic tea.

Two weeks later, they took a cab to the Giza pyramids at 4 am to watch the sun rise, but the grounds were closed. While they tried to find their way in, a pack of stray dogs began to circle them. Juliette was so scared that she couldn’t move.

“I’ll never let anything bad happen to you,” John told her. “I promise.”

Photo by Jennifer Smoose

As executive director of Americans for Fair Trade, Ernest Baynard spent the first few months of 2005 making appearances on CNN and CNBC, speaking out against a Central American trade deal.

At the Department of Commerce, senior adviser Lindsey Dickinson spent her days fighting for the proposed agreement. All’s fair in love and war—and this time, it was both: Baynard and Dickinson had been dating for two years.

The couple, who live in DC, met backstage at the 9:30 Club in November 2002. Ernest was friends with members of the evening’s band, Galactic, and Lindsey had won a radio contest to meet the band.

“I found out he was a Democrat in our first conversation, and it didn’t bother me,” says Lindsey, now senior director for federal-government affairs at Comcast. “It was nice, actually, meeting someone who wasn’t part of the Bush administration but still shared some of my interests.”

They both saw the band again the next night, and Ernest called Lindsey that Monday. They went on a few dates, but the romance started when they parted ways for the holidays. While home with her family in Vermont, Lindsey was impressed to see a quote from Ernest in Time magazine—and touched that he called her on Christmas. From the night they got back to DC, they were a bipartisan couple. 

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!’ ”

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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.”