Growing up with an aunt who was a traveling nurse really inspired Andrea to pursue the profession. With the family influence, plus an insatiable love of travel made the travel nursing career an easy choice. She headed off to Virginia on her first assignment with Access Nurses in May 2007 as an ER nurse.

“I came to Richmond knowing nobody, and since I was here, I picked up a lot of extra time in the ER,” she said. And that’s where she met Billy, a hospitalist doctor.

“[Billy] was one of the first people I met. He brought me a cupcake, and I was easily won over.”

Nine months later, Andrea was flipping through some pictures Billy had just developed while sitting on their back porch. Each photo was of something different—from a wagon to their dog—with a different letter or word, spelling out “Will you marry me?”

At first Andrea thought he was teasing her.

“For the past couple months he would give me the plastic ring [on top of cupcakes] and propose,” she said. But then he pulled a real ring out of his pocket.

Next came the wedding planning. The couple had plans to go to Belize for a vacation in August. But they figured: “Why wait?”

The vacation turned into a destination wedding. The two wed on a beautiful, secluded beach on August 8—just the two of them. Andrea walked down the aisle lined with conch shells and flower petals holding a bouquet of red and pink ginger flowers as Billy stood under a red-flowered archway. A local judge married them.

Andrea and Billy live in Richmond with their two Labrador-Retrievers, Chance and Shadow. Andrea works full time for now at Henrico Doctor’s Hospital. But the travel bug is biting and she can’t wait to get back on the road.

“I am itching to go on another assignment,” she said. “I love the freedom, the flexibility.”

Until then, Billy is trying to make it up to her.

“He made the agreement that since I stopped travel nursing, he’d make it up to me by going somewhere every month,” she said. Florida and Maine are the next stops on their destination list.