Senior Kendra Hamilton met her fiance, fellow senior Derek Weyhrauch, during a Faculty Scholarship weekend as a high school senior. They were on the same team, but Hamilton would not remember that when she met him again during orientation.
On the second day of Traditiation, Hamilton found a wallet on the floor in the Robinson Teaching Theatre after a lecture from Michael Le Roy, vice president for Academic Affairs, on terrorism. She went to the front to return the wallet and heard someone call her name.
Weyhrauch had remembered her.
"I had no idea who he was. I couldn't place him," Hamilton said.
Weyhrauch certainly did. He remembered the team they were on together, No. 11, and how he noticed her. In the first exercise, he noticed a women getting up and being very assertive about how the team was going to operate. And he responded by doing the same.
The two exchanged information. She found out he lived in Arend, and she did not know where that was. One day she walked by and found it and, having nothing to do, figured the least she could do is stop by since he remembered her name.
Within three days, they were taking walks and talking.
"I told him I was going to marry him, which was probably really stupid on my part. I didn't know his last name and I was dating someone back home at the time, but he was perfect," Hamilton said.
Weyhrauch said this did not put him off.
"I never had a girlfriend before, but I was not put out at all. I was not shocked. It was just an accurate assessment of our compatibility," Weyhrauch said.
Hamilton later broke up with her boyfriend. Three weeks later on Sept. 23, they started dating.
The couple has been together for three and a half years. They got engaged Nov. 3 in Gig Harbor, Wash. Their wedding is scheduled for May 25.
Hamilton said she started planning the wedding last year, because she knew she wanted to go overseas after graduation and many of the programs started in June. She wanted to be married before traveling.
When it came time to propose, Weyhrauch, with a reputation for elaborate surprises, said he felt a lot of pressure built up. Each time he planned it, he was delayed.
The couple was reaching a point and making wedding plans, so he decided to just go for it. After a kayak trip, the two went out to a beach area and he proposed through a message in a bottle in the sand.
"Our relationship had an incredibly natural progression," Weyhrauch said. "In my personal view, marriage is more of a celebration of a relationship."
Hamilton said people tend to be excited for the first few engagements, and then the excitement wears off.
Hamilton said if there was any pressure in the relationship, she pushed him. She said she needed six months to plan the wedding and he could propose anytime before that window. She also felt the pressure herself.
"It's hard to plan a wedding when you are not engaged," she said.
Weyhrauch said he realized there was a need for certainty before making larger financial commitments in planning the wedding.
"She told me, 'If you do not propose before six months, I'm going to propose to you,'" he said.
Weyhrauch said there was some external pressure when several friends of theirs got engaged, but they had already been planning it.
"It added a sense of urgency," he said.
Resistance and questions
Hamilton said she did not expect the reception she has gotten from some people.
"I've had quite a few questions about whether it's going to hinder my career development," Hamilton said. "I understand that it is common for women to stay at home."
Weyhrauch has received the same response to their marriage. In fact, he has asked physicians who were married during medical school how it and residency impacted their marriages, he said.
"He wants to go to medical school. It's assumed that he will," she said.
Hamilton received a Fulbright grant to teach in Malaysia starting in January of next year. She will be a teaching assistant in a rural high school in the second most conservative Muslim state, she said.
Hamilton said she has had a lot of people ask whether Weyhrauch is coming with her to Malaysia. She does not understand why that is a question.
"If we are going to get married, I'm not going to be apart," she said. "Yes, of course he's coming. I wouldn't want to live there without him. I could, but that's not the same thing."
Before the couple moves to Malaysia, Weyhrauch will be applying to medical school. The seven months they are out of the country is the same gap where he will be waiting to hear where he will be accepted.
Weyhrauch said he does not have concrete plans of what he will do, but said he plans to concentrate his efforts on medical assistance and triathlons, which he says is a fairly obsessive hobby.
Navigating gender roles in the relationship
Hamilton said the couple has had a lot of discussion around wedding symbolism. She decided to have her father give her away, which she said is a traditional part of the ceremony she likes.
"We've talked a lot about making things equal and trying to find ways for both of us to be involved," Hamilton said.
Weyhrauch said he would like to say under normal conditions he would have been more involved in the wedding planning process. In preparation for medical school, he has been studying for the MCATs, which he took a month ago.
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