Ryan & Josh

You could say Richmond is at the heart of love for Josh Walters and Ryan Ramsey. While neither are native Richmonders, the city played an integral part in both of their stories. Ryan has called the city home since elementary school, while Josh came to Virginia from Ohio in 2006 for a contract position at Capital One. The end of his contract saw Josh returning to Ohio and then to Jacksonville, Florida, but after being offered the role of Senior Manager at Capital One, he returned to the city that he had grown so fond of, ready to reconnect and look for love.

Josh soon joined Gold's Gym in The Fan where Ryan had been a member for over 10 years. The two saw each other around the facilities, and unbeknownst to the other were secretly interested but worried that their crush might not be gay.  In December, after one of his friends asked him suddenly whether or not he knew Ryan, Josh decided to take a leap of faith. Using Craigslist's "Missed Connections" section, he made a post entitled "Orange Crush" in reference to the orange shirt Ryan had been wearing. Several days passed and Josh forgot about the post as he left to spend Christmas with family in Ohio, but just a day later he received a message from Ryan indicating that he believed the post was about him and asking to know more about Josh.

After a few emails and then a few more Facebook chats, the two finally got together for their first date at Water Grill in Carytown on January 10, 2011. Just four years later Ryan proposed to Josh at Julep's Restaurant, unaware of the fact that Josh had been planning to propose when they returned home.

Josh and Ryan love their city and are very active in its community. Ryan is an Urban Planner for Chesterfield County and maintains the Richmond City Watch website which archives photography and building information on interesting structures in the Richmond Metropolitan area. He loves gardening and takes care of the planting, mulching, and watering of all of the tree wells and traffic circles within several blocks of the couple's Church Hill home, as well as transforming many vacant lots into urban gardens. In 2014 he even obtained a grant from NeighborWoods and with the help of his neighbors planted six new street trees on their block. Josh is the current president of the ROSMY Jr. Board as well as the Richmond Chapter Lead for Capital one's LGBT network and has recently started participating with the Richmond Business Alliance.

While both men are very different individuals, when the two of them come together, they make the perfect pair. Richmond's culture of restaurants, museums, and colorful people are what Josh and Ryan love about this city, and they expect to treasure the life they have built here together for as long as they live.