Grad students find The Green a lucky spot for proposal

11:50 a.m., Oct. 16, 2003--More than 15 years ago, University of Delaware student David Shepherd shared a classroom, a teacher and various school supplies with a girl named Laura Parrish. More than likely, although he can’t remember, he even swapped the obligatory Valentine’s Day card with her and chased her around on the playground.

There might have been a spark then. Except that it was, after all, third grade.

Grad students Laura Parrish and David Shepherd at their engagement luncheon on The Green

Now, the 24-year-old computer science graduate student chuckles when he remembers those early years, but he gives a certain amount of credence to kismet and the law of averages nonetheless. After growing up less than five minutes apart in the same small town in central Virginia and crossing paths only occasionally, Shepherd and Parrish became engaged this summer on The Green.

“Laura and I were in third grade together, and our parents were friends,” Shepherd said. “I might have recognized her name, but we hardly ever saw each other.”

In fact, it wasn’t until Shepherd and Parrish bumped into each other by chance at Virginia Commonwealth University that the rustlings of friendship—and subsequently courtship—began. There, as undergraduates, the two became inseparable best friends and, days before Valentine’s Day during their senior year, dating partners as well.

Bringing their relationship with them when they entered graduate school at UD, the two continued to see each other frequently, despite their jammed schedules, and they made a habit of meeting for lunch each day on The Green. The day of the proposal was no different from any other, as Parrish recalls, except that a bogus phone call arrived just minutes before she was set to walk out the door. According to the voice on the other end of the line, Parrish needed to run an errand for a colleague. As it turned out, that colleague happened to be Shepherd.

“David tricked me,” the 22-year-old chemical engineering graduate student said. “As I walked across The Green, the bells started chiming 12 o’clock and David was waiting for me in a tux.”

The groom-to-be proceeded to get down on one knee and tell Parrish his intention. The bride-to-be, of course, accepted.

“We were best friends for three years,” Parrish said, “so we walked into the relationship knowing all about each other’s faults and good qualities. When you know someone well, there aren’t too many doubts or secrets.”

Shepherd, not surprisingly, agreed. “When you’re best friends with someone and you’ve dated them, there aren’t too many unknowns,” he said.

The wedding, which will be held in the couple’s hometown of Chester, Va., is planned for July 10, 2004—a date that neither Shepherd nor Parrish feels will conflict with coursework.

Although still uncertain about plans for settling down after graduation, they said they hope to eventually make a permanent home near the Outer Banks in North Carolina.

Article by Becca Hutchinson
Photos courtesy of David Shepherd and Laura Parrish

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