From an unforeseen Undergraduate Advisor's romance to an ignited marching band friendship, as the everyday life of the campus beats on, it is happening.
Whether on bended knee on the Boston Common, watching the skyline from atop the Empire State Building or quietly at home on Christmas day, fellow Dartmouth students are pledging their eternal vows.
On a campus seemingly notorious for lacking the archetypal dating scene, engagements at Dartmouth appear to be far less rare than might be expected.
The stories and reasons behind the College engagement phenomenon are all different.
Sarah Boynton '98 and Edward Pitts '98 will be married in Rollins Chapel the day after their graduation this year.
Boynton said they decided to take the big step because "it was more important to stay together than to pursue anything independently."
"We wanted to think about our future beyond Dartmouth with each other in mind," she said. "We've been so close throughout our two years together here on campus that it's as though we've already been married."
Love in unexpected places
Such romantic tales of Dartmouth students show that love truly can be found where it is least expected. While Boynton and Pitts are forever indebted to mutual Dartmouth friends for introducing them, Josh Papsdorf '98 and Jill Perring '99 were actually brought together by the Office of Residential Life.
As Papsdorf, who proposed on Boston Common, explained, "My sophomore year I was a UGA in Woodward, and Jill was one of my freshmen. Of course, we didn't start dating until her sophomore winter."
Yet when one considers the similar ambitions and parallel interests of many conscientious Dartmouth students, it is not surprising that life-long matches are being made on campus.Michelle Gregg '99 and Ben Sweetser '97 met each other through their common participation in the Dartmouth College Marching Band, growing closer through band recruiting and leadership positions. Even the proposal took place on a Dartmouth excursion.
"Ben proposed to me on the top of the Empire State Building in New York," Gregg said. "We were there last November with the band for the Columbia game. It's tradition to get together and sing all the Dartmouth songs at the top of the building. We stayed up a little longer than the rest of the band ... it was then that he put the ring on my finger and asked me to marry him."
But by no means are student engagements bound to the confines of the campus or the greater Hanover area. Randy Choiniere '01 got engaged on Christmas day to his girlfriend of four years, Jess Blaine, who attends the State University of New York -- Plattsburgh. The pair doesn't plan on actually marrying until 2002, after both have graduated.
Choiniere described the engagement as a "reaffirmation that though we are separate geographically, we are really still together."
"The engagement just seemed like the right thing to do," Choiniere explained. "Though we'll travel on our separate paths and achieve our individual goals, we are ultimately traveling to the same destination where we'll converge after school."
Going to the chapel ...
While it is difficult to estimate any change in numbers of student engagements on campus with any degree of accuracy, Christian Chaplain Gwendolyn King said that "over the past four or five years there has been a slight increase in Dartmouth alumni getting married between two and five years following graduation."
In such cases, weddings often take place in the non-denominational Rollins Chapel, with bookings generally made one to one-and-a-half years in advance of the big day.
King said it's all part of the "we met here, let's get married here" philosophy. This old-fashioned nostalgia has been calling more and more alumni back to tie-the-knot since the early 1990s.
In the case of current students, King found that "one of the parties is usually a senior or a recent graduate, while some juniors get engaged just so they can marry directly following graduation."
Yet King emphasized that generalizations and statistics on student engagements are troublesome, since "many people see it as their private moment which they don't necessarily want to share with others just yet." In addition, students are not required to report personal engagements to the College administration, clouding any potential statistics on the topic.
With this ring ...
However there are other means of tracking the romantic gestures of the engaged. Any students with the inclination of bestowing their significant other with a special gift need not look further than the Claflin Jewelry Studio in the Hopkins Center, open daily as the center for student jewelry design and creation.
Though the staff has not noticed increased numbers of engagement rings being designed by students, jewelry studio student assistant Sarah McCoy '99 said she noticed "an influx of males frantically searching for various pendant and heart designs to make for their sweethearts in the few days leading up to Valentine's Day."
The studio's engagement ring numbers, by contrast, stay fairly consistent, with several couples a year establishing design options, constructing the rings themselves or simply setting diamonds previously purchased.
The standard price for a gold band at the studio is $50 to $150, but regardless, a great deal of time is invested into the construction of the ring.
"Generally, the couple comes in with a fixed idea of what they want and a diamond to carve around," McCoy said. "The 'lost wax method' is used, where a conception is made out of wax, after which a negative mold is created. Generally, silver or gold is then melted into it to take on the desired shape."
Whether with handmade or store-bought rings, students are continuing to manifest their vows officially. "I don't think either of us were terribly concerned about what other people were going to think about it," Gregg said. "It was never a matter of deciding whether or not to wait."
"Ours was a decision we were comfortable with, simply for ourselves," she said. "And it's just great to have the ring on as a physical reminder that Ben will always be there for me, even though he can't be there physically every single moment of the day."
