Meeting someone significant in a bar is a clich�. Most people don’t believe it happens, but there are exceptions, and among them are Spivey and Brooke Paup, who met five years ago at the Crooked Path, a college bar in College Station, Texas.

He’s an aide to Rep. John Carter (R-Texas). She’s a Washington attorney. They wed last October. They are both 27 and both Scorpios, born just a day apart. They have spent much of this year adjusting to married life and, even more, adjusting to living in the same city together — something they didn’t do for much of their courtship.

Brooke remembers clearly the loud, darkened bar where they met. Friends had long tried to set them up, but it was Brooke who first approached Spivey, who was standing among a bevy of women.

“Spivey was surrounded by other girls, so I had to wrestle him away from the pack,” recalls Brooke. “He bought me a drink, and we talked all night.”

Spivey’s memory is clear: “She’s gorgeous obviously, so I spent the rest of the night with her.”

At the time, Brooke had just gotten out of a serious relationship and wasn’t looking to meet anyone, but, she says, “I fell in love.”

Much of their romance was from a distance. In September 2002, she began law school at Texas Tech School of Law in Lubbock, Texas. Spivey was pursuing a career in Washington, working for Carter. They got together every three weeks.

“It was hard at the time, but worth it,” he says.

She struggled too. “I was not seeing him on a regular basis,” she says. “I was the single-but-not-single girl with all my friends. Not being able to fully participate in each other’s lives was hard.”

Distance was their test. “After my first year in law school, I knew we could make it forever because I knew we could do the distance,” Brooke says. “I saw he was doing everything in his power to make it work. Any anxiety I had about where our relationship was going was pretty much gone.”

Spivey’s assurance of their survival came at two distinct moments. “In the first two months I realized she was perfect and everything I ever wanted in a woman,” he says. And then a year and a half into it, he thought to himself, “Hey, it’s working. It’s going to last.”

In 2004, the couple, having survived the distance — both saying it made their relationship stronger — got engaged on vacation in the Dominican Republic. A year later, a big church wedding with a formal reception followed in Dallas.   

The destination for their honeymoon: Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Midway through the trip, disaster nearly struck when they learned that Hurricane Wilma was headed their way. At the last minute, they evacuated and flew to Dallas. Shortly after, Wilma ravaged the coastline. Others were stranded for two and a half weeks.

The newlyweds say they are due for another honeymoon and plan to take it later this year to Napa, Calif. — hopefully they won’t run into a mudslide.