Cynthia C. Ellis and Mark L. Hill ’05

I ‘knew’ pretty much as soon as we started dating,” says Mark L. Hill ’05 of his fiancée, Cynthia C. Ellis. But acting on his instinct proved harder than Mr. Hill first anticipated. Although they met in elementary school, they did not start dating until the summer after their senior year in high school.

Once during their three year, 11-month courtship, one wrote suggestions for activities on paper slips and the other would draw one to decide.

On Thanksgiving, Mr. Hill made two boxes—one filled with papers that either said “go get cappuccino” or “go get wine” and one filled with papers that said “river surprise.”

In September, Mr. Hill had asked Ms. Ellis’ parents for permission for their daughter’s hand in marriage. “She thought it was a couple of years down the road, but I could tell that she wanted to get married,” says Mr. Hill. Both parents supported the idea—he says their parents now go out to dinner about once a week—so he planned his surprise.

Ms. Ellis’ and Mr. Hill’s sisters helped him prepare a dock in their hometown of Gadsden, Ala. Later that evening, after running errands and picking up wine, Mr. Hill switched the boxes and the couple headed to the river—where the two boarded a canoe, and he blindfolded her.

“Cynthia started whining from the second we got in the canoe—she was cold, and she wanted to see me,” he says. En route, she endured several re-blindfoldings, misdirections, and near submersions. “She was probably just being nice because I was obviously trying to have a special date but failing at it.”

“On the way, she gently patted my belly and nicely told me to lay off the pizza and sweets because I was getting a bit pudgy,” Mr. Hill says. He directed the canoe to the correct pier, where two bottles of champagne and 600 lit candles were waiting. Once there, he stripped off his sweater and jeans to reveal the source of the pudge—tuxedo underneath.

The ring wasn’t ready, so he proposed with a ring pop. Ms. Ellis said yes.

Bradley James Barnes, a Harvard chaplain, will officiate the Alabama ceremony on July 2. In the fall, Mr. Hill and Ms. Ellis will enter medical school at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.

While Mr. Hill found love far before coming to Harvard—and endured a long distance relationship, as Ms. Ellis attended Wake Forest—he believes Harvard can be a place for romantics.

“I found it before I got here, but many of the role models for my marriage met at Harvard, then got married,” he says. “Though sometimes it seems to be impossible, I know love happens at Harvard because I know some very, very happy Harvard couples.” —A.M.L.

Kelly A. Perry ’05 and Tobias J.E. Carling

Working in a lab for the summer before her senior year of high school, Kelly A. Perry ’05 never imagined she would meet her future husband. But post-doctoral researcher Tobias Carling, standing by the microscopes one day, changed everything.