Ms. Music, a 25-year-old currently working in non-profit consulting, grew up in Costa Rica and had never celebrated Thanksgiving. At her first dinner, she was struck by how caring her roommate’s younger brother seemed when he lent his sweater to a family friend who complained of the cold.

“I was very friendly but wasn’t romantically interested,” she says. The two kept interactions casual over e-mail and instant messenger until Mr. Murray, now 21 and a physics concentrator in Adams House, arrived at Harvard two years later.

The relationship’s starting date is a point of good-natured contention. “I think it started earlier than she does,” laughs Mr. Murray, who says it took a long time to “convince her” to date him. Ms. Music was nervous about how her roommate—Mr. Murray’s sister—would respond to their blossoming romance, and so they took things slowly. They first held hands under a Costa Rican sunset during spring break of Mr. Murray’s freshman year. A few months later they had their first official public date: dinner at Bombay Club before the Lowell House formal.

When Ms. Music’s roommate found out, they realized their concern had been misplaced—Ms. Murray approved of the match.

Marriage was a step Mr. Murray talked about from the earliest stages of the relationship. “Even back in freshman year I was talking about it, and Shannon would say ‘slow down!’” It wasn’t until Ms. Music’s senior year, however, that the plans would begin to take shape. “We were talking about what we were going to do after she graduated and so Shannon knew I was going to propose, she just didn’t know when,” he says.

After Ms. Music’s final college exam, Mr. Murray presented her with his grandmother’s engagement ring at the Bombay Club, the site of their first official date together. He had already received her parents’ approval, after e-mailing them in Spanish (a language he had just started learning at the start of the semester). When she accepted, he showed her the e-mail. “It was very sweet to see my mother’s words,” Ms. Music says. “Amara was also super happy because it was a great thought that we would be sisters.”

Next year, Mr. Murray will be working for Mercer Management Consulting Group in Boston, and Ms. Music will begin classes at Harvard Business School alongside another Murray: Ethan’s 24-year-old brother, Abraham.

After Ms. Music graduates from HBS, the couple plans to host a large Catholic ceremony in Costa Rica. “We want to have everyone there, celebrating together,” they say, tumbling over each other’s sentences. —A.E.L.

Erika M. Cowman ’05 and Michael C. Schetter

Erika M. Cowman ’05 has some advice for Harvard women left lost and lovelorn. “I think more of us should date sailors,” she says. Ms. Cowman speaks from experience: after two years of dating Michael Schetter, a 22-year-old naval officer, she can identify exactly what she sees as the problems with finding love at Harvard. “My relationship was never in this weird limbo of hook-ups,” she says. “I hate the Harvard male’s arrogant attitude of ‘You’re so lucky to have me.’ I’ve seen gorgeous girls get treated badly.”

“Guys at Harvard are basically undateable,” she adds.

By contrast, Ms. Cowman’s relationship with Mr. Schetter has been smooth sailing. When the two met on Valentine’s Day 2002, Ms. Cowman says it was “kind of a love at first sight thing.” Introduced to each other by Ms. Cowman’s roommate, Sarah M. Poage ’05, who went to high school with Mr. Schetter in San Diego, Calif., the two hit it off and kept in touch over the next year while Mr. Schetter was in boot camp in South Carolina. The following Valentine’s Day, they met again and decided to begin dating long-distance.

Ms. Cowman, originally from Houston, Texas, says that “lots of reassurance and compliments”—as well as a degree of caution regarding possible miscommunications on the telephone—have kept the bond between them strong while they’re apart.

Mr. Schetter proposed at the end of March this year while stationed in Washington, D.C. “I said yes before he even finished,” says Ms. Cowman.