Ms. Perry thought Mr. Carling “the most good-looking guy” she had ever seen. Noting that her handsome colleague regularly left work with a surfboard in tow, she worked up the courage to ask if he could teach her how to surf at a nearby beach in San Diego, Calif. The two went on a surfing date and were immediately smitten.
“Basically it was clear from the start that we would get married as soon as I was old enough,” says the 22-year-old anthropology concentrator and Pforzheimer resident. As the couple lived apart—Mr. Carling, 32, is now completing a medical residency at Yale—Ms. Perry spent almost every weekend of her college career commuting. “We talk once a day, not for long, but just to touch base,” she explains. “We always know when we are next going to see each other.”
Mr. Carling is originally from Sweden, and Ms. Perry has taken Swedish classes since her first year of college to enable her to converse with Mr. Carling in two languages. One midsummer’s night in Stockholm, during one of the couple’s numerous trips to Scandinavia, Mr. Carling proposed. Although Swedish convention involves the “egalitarian” exchange of gold bands, Ms. Perry says her fiancé followed the American fashion of presenting her with a diamond engagement ring because “he knew I would want that.”
Following graduation, Ms. Perry will work in Connecticut for a direct marketing company, while Mr. Carling completes two more years of surgery residency. They hope to eventually move back to San Diego and make annual visits to Sweden.
The globe-trotting couple will have their July wedding on familiar ground: the seaside park where they had their first date. —A.E.L.
Beidi Gu ’05 and Minhua Zhang ’05
When Beidi Gu ’05 and Minhua Zhang ’05 first met at their Shanghai middle school, sparks didn’t exactly fly. The two had been chosen to co-host the school’s Christmas concert, but Ms. Gu was nervous around her fellow emcee. “He was very famous because he was on student council,” she says. “I was so nervous I didn’t even look at him.”
Some years later, after going on to attend different schools, they met again. Both were assigned to Weld Hall as first-years, and this time, Ms. Gu, now 23 and an economics concentrator in Dunster House, fixed her eye firmly on her middle school acquaintance. Ms. Gu struck up a close friendship with Mr. Zhang during the hustle and bustle of Opening Days.
“Minhua helped me do auditions for singing groups,” she says. “We discovered there were a lot of common topics between us.” A 23-year-old Leverett resident and joint physics and math concentrator, Mr. Zhang, meanwhile, plotted for a first date—but it was difficult to find time amidst the stresses of freshman year. “We first went out at the end of a very busy Expos paper week. I asked her out in Cabot Science Library and she replied by e-mail later that night.”
On that first date, they walked ’round and ’round Harvard Square for hours. Conversation was easy: as Mr. Zhang says, “we really have language and experience to share.” They talked about the sometimes difficult transition from what Ms. Gu describes as the “homogenous Chinese society to the diverse Western society” and enjoyed conversing with each other in a mixture of English, Mandarin, and Shanghai dialect.
The couple became inseparable, spending summers together in Cambridge, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. “Both of us plan for life and do look forward,” says Mr. Zhang. “We weren’t just dating for the sake of dating.” Although they had discussed marriage “on and off,” Ms. Gu says the proposal this past Valentine’s Day came as a “complete surprise.” The couple were so close by then that Mr. Zhang had to fib about his ring-purchasing expedition. He told Ms. Gu that he was “studying in Cabot” when he went to Tiffany’s.
Following graduation, both will join financial firms in New York City: Mr. Zhang at D.E. Shaw and Ms. Gu at Morgan Stanley. “I would never have gotten into the finance field without Beidi,” Mr. Zhang says. “It’s very special to have this relationship in addition to all the excitement of college, and then to be in the same industry afterwards.” Ms. Gu is also counting her blessings. “What are the chances of going to the same middle school [in China] and then getting back together again.” —A.E.L.