Mary Jo & John Gardere

During their first week of school at Centenary College in Louisiana in 1975, Mary Jo had just “run down the hill” to complete pledging for Zeta Tau Alpha. She joined her new sorority sisters that night to meet new fraternity pledges down “Frat Row.”

The girls were set to stop at a few fraternity houses before Mary Jo’s date at the Kappa Sigma house at 8 p.m., but Mary Jo never made it. Instead, she met John Gardere at the first fraternity house she visited Kappa Alpha.

The two hit it off instantly and later moved to Dallas where they married at Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church on June 13, 1981, and have lived in Dallas for the last 42 years.

Dawn & David Hall

Dawn and David Hall met during their first semester at Southern Methodist University. The pair dated throughout college and married at SMU’s Perkins Chapel the year after graduation. Last year, they celebrated 40 years with a surprise party hosted by their kids that included many of their friends from their SMU days.

“When we met on our first date, David made a toast to our first child. I am not making this up,” Dawn says. “That child, by the way, is now 36 years old. He claims the moment he met me, he knew I was the girl he had dreamed about when he was growing up in Jefferson City, Missouri. The rest, as they say, is history.”