In the fall of 2007, students returned to campus and freshmen eagerly entered the dorms, excited to make new friends.
That same fall, KU cashier Deana Lucas met VWK cashier Doug Young in a place where many new students exchange names over monster cookies and Wednesday night pasta bar: Marycrest Dining Hall.
Five years later, on Oct. 11, two of UD students’ favorite Dining Services employees announced their engagement.
“I went on a trip to visit my grandparents in Florida, and on the Greyhound, I had a lot of time to think,” Young said. “So I get back and I tell her, you know, I just flat out say, ‘2013, we’re getting married.’”
Lucas said she was excited but wanted to know if it was official. Young gave her an answer a few days later when he got down on one knee and presented Lucas with the sparkling engagement ring they had chosen just days earlier.
“She starts crying,” Young said. “So I’m like, ‘Is that a no?’ Because she didn’t answer right away! I knew it was yes, but I was just playfully trying to calm her down from crying.”
“Because it was just so not Doug,” Lucas explained. “The whole one-knee thing and everything.”
However, she did say yes and said she is excited to start planning for the big day. The pair has not picked a date yet and are still enjoying the excitement of their engagement.
“I was pushing to pick a date because I was all caught up in the moment,” Lucas said. “But he said ‘Why rush with all that? Let’s enjoy being engaged, and then we will figure it all out, everything will fall into place.’”
Young and Lucas said the wedding will be in 2013. Lucas said she has a lot of ideas for it, but that she doesn’t want anything big.
“I don’t really feel like that’s what it’s about,” she said. “I’d rather just have an intimate thing with us and then maybe do like an after celebration or something with our friends and family.”
The couple said they were excited to share the big news and were overwhelmed by the reaction from everyone on campus.
“It kind of started when she put on Facebook, ‘2013 finally engaged,’ you know, but then once we actually changed our relationship status to engaged, boom! It just started hitting,” Young said. “It caught me off guard!”
Lucas posted a picture of her ring to Facebook once they changed their relationship status, and the picture alone received 141 likes and 34 comments, many from students and members of the UD community.
“Literally people have come in just to see the ring,” Lucas said. “And to say how they are so happy for us.”
Both Lucas and Young said they were surprised and happy for all of the warm wishes from everyone on campus. They are also thankful to have met that first day in Marycrest.
“If you go looking for love you won’t really necessarily find it,” Young said. “I mean you could find it, but it always comes really unexpectedly. When we first met, we never expected this.”
Lucas agreed and said they were both in other relationships when they first met but began dating shortly after, and the rest is history.
“This sounds too cliché but I’m literally happier, besides having my daughter, this is the happiest I’ve ever been,” Lucas said.
For now, after all of these years, the couple is blissfully enjoying their new engagement and preparing for the big day.
“Time goes by and, like I said, you really start to think,” Young said. “What better time to do it than now?”
