Though most think of The Gallery in Snyder-Phillips Hall as a nothing more than a place for food between classes, for physics junior Benjamin Roggenbuck and microbiology sophomore Casey Grody, it’s the place they got engaged.
After meeting at the cafeteria two and a half years ago, Roggenbuck said he thought it would be the perfect location for the proposal.
The pair met at the end of spring semester in 2014, when they both worked for the cafeteria. Roggenbuck was a supervisor and went to check on the dish room.
Grody was working in the dish room and the two had a lighthearted debate about cleaning the rice cooker.
“That’s how it all started,” Roggenbuck said.
The couple started dating two years later on April 4, 2016.
“It’s a very happy (relationship),” Roggenbuck said. “We have our few petty arguments, but we’ve never had a serious fight. We get along very well. We love each other. We understand each other’s differences.”
With the cafeteria meaning so much to the couple, Roggenbuck planned the proposal for the masquerade-themed party after Grody mentioned how perfect that would be.
After coordinating with his manager and her best friends, Roggenbuck had a plan in place. During the cafeteria’s masquerade celebration, which included students dancing on a dance floor while a DJ played music, the floor was cleared for the couple.
When the music died down, he pulled Grody onto the floor and began narrating the story of how they met. After telling her how certain he was about wanting to spend the rest of his life with, he knelt down and held up the ring box.
She giggled and told him he forgot to open the lid. He laughed back after finally opening the box to reveal a ring, got a “yes” as a response from Grody.
The song “Marry You” by Bruno Mars rang from the speakers, and the couple shared a brief slow dance together before their group of friends flooded onto the floor and gathered around the pair in a giant group hug.
Once they left the floor, Grody hardly had words to describe what she was feeling.
“I’m super excited, I might cry, I don’t know, it was perfect,” Grody said.
Feeling both ecstatic and relieved, Roggenbuck said he couldn’t have asked for it to go any better.
“It’s fantastic,” Roggenbuck said. “I mean it was a lot of working getting this ready to go. It definitely turned out better than I thought. There was a couple adjustments I had to make here and there, but you know what, at the end of the day, it all went down perfect.”
The couple plans on saving the wedding for after they’ve both graduated from college. They’re hoping this is in two or three years.
Until then, they’re happily living together and look forward to enjoying their engagement.
“Just being in the same room makes me happy,” Roggenbuck said. “I’ve never met anyone like her, and I just want to be with her for the rest of my life, because I’m not going to find anyone like this and I don’t think there’s anything else in the world that could make me this happy.”
