Love is always in the air during Valentine’s Day season, and has been for decades at St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes. Sparks always seem to weave through the school, from reaching for the same dropped pencil during a math test, locking eyes across the gymnasium during an assembly, or bumping into a future soulmate in the halls and dropping belongings in the classic romantic-comedy fashion. It’s hard not to catch attraction as students’ days are filled in close proximity to others – and for teachers, it’s hard not to notice when the connections form.
“We have 16 couples that I have since I taught here and they didn’t all necessarily date while they were in high school,” shared Upper School Art History Teacher and Yearbook Advisor Mrs. Sandoval. She has kept track of the high school sweethearts, with the exception of students who started dating after their graduation. “A bunch of them reconnected through all of the alumni events or just the way in which this community has such a strong network when kids come back at Thanksgiving or over the summer and they’re meeting up at different social events. They end up mixing with people they maybe weren’t friends with in high school or in a different grade, so we end up with all these couples, which is crazy.”
One couple that started dating after high school is Mathias Heller ’11 and Rebecca Dickerson ‘11. Mathias and Rebecca met in first grade theater camp in Alexandria, but reunited in middle school when Mathias joined St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes. They stayed close friends in high school, and even though there were no romantic feelings at the time, Mathias notes that Rebecca was way cooler than him.
Their love story first started in California when they were in graduate school. Their long friendship in high school made it easier for them to fall in love. Mathias said, “Having a shared sense of background, community, and place lays the foundation consciously or unconsciously, and then life takes its unpredictable course from there.”
He also added that being in different phases of life opened the door for their new relationship. “You can have a different type of relationship with different people who you’ve known for a long time. I think that it was the different context or phase of life that then allowed us to have a relationship.”
During high school, Mathias said that the small class sizes and tight knit community of the school helped foster strong relationships, whether they were platonic or romantic. One of these classes was Madame Van Way’s French class. French has been an important part of their relationship, from doing the Tour de France in Madame Van Way’s class, to traveling to France together this New Year’s. Rebecca was also a teaching assistant for an undergraduate French class during graduate school. Mathias shared, “The little community spaces that the school is so good at creating and fostering are a key part of what makes lifelong relationships and friendships possible.” These relationships followed them all the way to their wedding, where they had many old high school friends as bridesmaids and groomsmen.
“Life can be unpredictable and that you can never really plan everything out,” Mathias said, “just like how Rebecca and I had never planned to be together.”
“Back in 2008-2009 I had Emily Sellon, who was Anne Sellon’s daughter, who used to be the head of learning resources,” Upper School French Teacher Madame Van Way shared. “She was a senior in my French class, and I could tell things were happening with her and this junior named Everett Epstein, because he would stop by and smile into the classroom.”
Madame Van Way went on to share that Everett finally asked Emily out to one of the school dances during her own French class, and then they started dating soon after during senior year. Luckily, they went to college nearby; Emily attended Boston College and Everett attended Brown University.
“They asked me to officiate the wedding because I was one of the first ones to realize that there was something happening between them. I was flabbergasted. I was like, ‘you want me to officiate?’”
Madame Van Way successfully officiated their wedding, which took place at Everett’s parents’ house in Old Chatham, NY. She noted that it was an “honor and a privilege” to take on the role.
Mr. Karsten, a math teacher here at the Upper School, has an older brother, Eric Karsten, a 2016 graduate from SSSAS, who is also a high school sweetheart to his wife, Iona Mclean, who graduated a year prior.
“We were both involved in the theater program,” Eric explained. “I was doing scenic construction and lighting design, while Iona was acting in the school musical, which was the Wiz my freshman year.”
Eric and Iona didn’t start dating right away, but said that the musical was a great way of getting to know each other.
“I remember we used to have lunch in the CPAC lobby, and Eric was sitting on the carpet flooring,” Iona said, recounting the first time they met. “I was excited to meet the new freshmen who were excited about performing arts. We didn’t start dating until my senior year, so we just stayed friends for a long time.”
The couple said they didn’t have an initial attraction to each other the first time they met, but Eric’s first impression of Iona was of her being a really interesting person. “She played the bass and would wear cool outfits, like leather jackets and things like that. I just thought she was a really cool person.”
“During our performing arts trip to New York, we sat with each other on the bus ride. And I have the type of personality where I ask a lot of questions, and I basically interviewed Eric the entire time. And that was the moment when I was like ‘wow, I really like hanging out with Eric’,” Iona told The Voice. “And after that, I wanted to be around him. I wanted to sit next to him. I wanted to be closer to him.”
They officially started dating a little before Iona’s senior year prom. But After Iona’s senior year, the couple did decide to split. Iona was off to Colgate University, while Eric went to UChicago once he graduated high school.
Their split up was very hard on both of them. Although they thought that breaking up for college was inevitable and the right thing to do, Eric said “it was hard to have a relationship where you’re talking about one another’s lives, but you’re not making as many new memories together or experiencing life together in the same way.”
However, they still ended up talking during the school year and during breaks, so by Thanksgiving Break they already were back together. They did long distance for five years when they were in school, and then Iona moved to California for her PhD. This was when they decided they needed to move with each other, so Eric moved in with her and was able to find a job in the area.
When asked if the couple ever thought they’d outgrow each other, Iona described their time together to be “magical.” She then continued by saying, “The hardship of seeing each other only once every three months was painful. So, I think for me at least, every time we were together, there was never a question that I wanted to still be in the relationship. We were still in love, and it was just easy and fun and wonderful.”
Recently engaged couple Stephany Guadalupe and Dylan Varghese ‘17 met in Lower School. Stephany told Dylan all those years ago that they would get married, and now they finally are!
Even though they were close for many years, they didn’t start dating until 8th grade. This was because they had different homerooms and weren’t able to consistently keep in touch. When they reconnected, Dylan had no idea Stephany still liked him. He said, “I was so clueless when Stephanie was starting to flirt with me.”
Their first date was at the movies, and Dylan described their first date as a “fake date” because all their friends sat in the row behind them. Stephany also recalled the exact moment when she realized she really liked him after a band and orchestra concert. They both have sisters two years younger than them who were in orchestra at the time, and Dylan was also in orchestra with them. Stephany stayed after school so her parents could get her and her sister together, and while she was waiting she started talking with Dylan. She says, “Spending time together in that moment, I realized, I really like you as a friend, but also spending this one on one time, and that’s when I was interested in [Dylan] as a boyfriend.”
After high school, Stephany went to New York University and Dylan went to James Madison University. They made the long distance work by traveling to see each other about two or three times a semester and trying to talk to each other every day. Stephany said, “We would try to call at least once a day. aWhen school got crazy that changed and we would do it every week. We would try to do a longer FaceTime so we see what we were up to. We would try and reconnect and make sure we were staying present in the relationship for sure. Then always having, or trying to have, a date that we were going to see each other.”
When they saw each other during breaks, they were very grateful that their parents only lived five minutes away from each other so they could see each other frequently. During the pandemic, Stephany lived with Dylan in Harrisonburg, VA to finish class virtually.
When they got engaged this past November, all of their friends from high school were waiting for this moment and were not shocked at all, but still were very excited for them. They have friends they met at SSSAS and have known them for over twenty years, and now they are going to be in their wedding which is very full circle for them.
Saints sweethearts Wiley Miller and Taylor Henrikson ‘18 are newly engaged this month
and have been dating since their junior year of high school. Taylor shared that she moved to SSSAS her freshman year and had classes with Wiley, but didn’t start talking to him until they were upperclassmen. In the fall of their junior year, Wiley asked Taylor to Homecoming, and they started dating in the following months.
When asked about their favorite memory together from high school, Taylor shared, “Our second date was an SSSAS field trip to DC and we had to go on a scavenger hunt in museums and then had free time to explore DC afterwards. We ended up going to the movies and getting lunch.”
Taylor went on to say, “Senior year homecoming Wiley asked me by creating a scavenger hunt that went all around Alexandria and Falls Church, including picking up soup and a clue from Peking Gourmet. The final spot was Kelleher where Wiley was waiting with balloons.”
Taylor and Wiley noted that SSSAS brought them together from their “foundational shared memories. We grew up through our high school years learning similar values that we built on in the years after and kept us growing together.”
Wiley proposed to Taylor on Valentine’s Day at Hamel Winery in Sonoma, “which we actually joined as wine club members per recommendation from another SSSAS family. Wiley told me our reservation was at 1:00 instead of our actual later reservation, so we had time on the patio completely to ourselves. We had a glass of wine overlooking the vineyard and Wiley proposed in front of the view. Then he surprised me with a dinner reservation at a bucket-list three-Michelin star restaurant called Single Thread. Best meal of my life.”
As Mrs. Sandoval shared, “It’s about the values- the school is really big on the goodness piece. And there is a religious element that’s really important to some peoples’ experience. The kids and the families who send their kids here have similar values, and that creates commonalities amongst kids. I think there’s something about this place that people just keep coming back to. And for some people it’s nostalgic and comfortable and comforting to have people who know what your experience was like.”
