Lara is in her 3rd year at Tulane Med School looking to specialize in Emergency Medicine. Slaten works as an insurance consultant on behalf of policyholders in our post-Katrina recovery effort. He has friends at Tulane Med School. They hung out a few times with friends and began to feel a particular connection at the 2007 Medical School prom. They were on vacation on the volcanic Greek island of Santorini in 2008, when he proposed. He bought the ring before the trip.

"I hid the ring in my luggage and called her dad right before we left for the airport to ask his permission. I managed to keep the ring hidden until we were going to dinner last night in Oia, a little town on one end of the island that's reputed to have the best sunsets on the planet. I'm not going to disagree. So we plan on going there and catching a sunset over dinner. I shove the ring box into my jeans and it was a HUGE bulge, at which point i start worrying that she's going to notice and it's going to spoil the surprise. We go through the town, see the sun setting, get a table at a cute little restaurant, and she doesn't notice the fact that it looks like I've got an enormous square tumor sticking out of my leg. The fading light from the sunset is reflecting off the white buildings in all sorts of beautiful hues. And no one's at the restaurant yet, so we've got the whole patio to ourselves. Basically, in contrast to a normal Slaten operation, this one was actually going well.

I get in front of her, so I'm surrounded by the panoramic view (which she later said she didn't even notice at the time) and she looks uncomprehendingly at the box. I open it, she sees the ring, but her face still shows no sign of having any idea what the hell is going on. I get down on one knee and ask her, "Will you marry me?"

Finally, comprehension. And here come the tears. And saying, "oh my god! oh my god!"

What she doesn't say is yes (or no, for that matter), she's just sitting there freaking out. After a couple minutes, I ask, "Um, can I get an answer?"

"Yes! Of course" Followed by more tears and "oh my god!"s.

After a couple of minutes, I ask, "Can we put this on your finger?" And we do and I finally sit back down.

While Lara's facing the view, i'm looking at the patio and the restaurant, where the waitress sees what's happening and starts freaking out, running back into the kitchen. i see her run in the door, then see her sprint past the window one way, only to run back a few seconds later with the rest of the staff in tow. When Lara says "yes" they start clapping. Right after I sit back down, they bring out champagne. I wish I could say I planned that part, but I didn't - they had my back.

And to top it all off, the meal was amazing.

They chose the Benachi House for several reasons.

"First, we simply liked the venue - it's a beautiful house. We also liked the fact that we weren't locked into a vendor and that we got the space for the whole weekend - no fear of being pushed out to break down for the next party. Finally, the price was right - we felt like we were getting great value for our money."

Congratulations to Lara and Slaten!