Everyone dreams of marrying their college sweetheart, and while countless broken hearts are a testament to how rarely it happens, when it does, it truly seems like it was taken out of a movie. John Angcay, originally from Daly City, California met his wife, Melanie Loyola of Naperville, while studying Biomedical Engineering at Marquette. The couple, known by their friends as "Mel-J," served on BSO's eboard together. John as Treasurer and Melanie as a Cultural Events Coordinator from 2003-2004, and in 2004-2005, served as BSO's President and Vice President, respectively. Bukas caught up with the two alumni to hear their amazing story.

 

How did you two meet? What were your first impressions of each other?

John: She came to visit during the dress rehearsal for the fashion show, Kaleidoscope (2001). I remember during a break she seemed to know a lot of people in BSO and was talking up a storm. I heard her voice and it was so cute that I had to see who it came from. Later on at the after party, I went to get drinks and on my way back from the bar, I was walking in her dance space, so she started dancing with me for a bit, but it was towards the end of the song, and I had to get the drinks back to my friends. When the song ended, that was that. I remember thinking I’d like to get to know her more, but I didn’t see her any more after that.

 

Melanie: I actually don’t remember first meeting John, but when I went back to Marquette in 2002, I knew him enough to say “Hi” to him whenever we passed each other. Before we really knew each other, I thought he was really cute…in a little brother kind of way. Our friendship started at the MAFA conference at Ohio State University in February 2003. We were sitting in a really boring session with empty seats between us because our friends left the session. He drew a tic tac toe grid on his paper and gestured for me to sit next to him to play. We hung out a lot after that and I thought he was a lot of fun.

 

Were you two quickly attracted to each other, or did it take some time?

John: It didn’t take long at all. I was immediately attracted to Melanie after MAFA, especially after we started hanging out a lot. It was easier for me since I wasn’t attached to anyone in particular and was open to any new relationship developments.

 

Melanie: It took a little longer for me because I was in a serious relationship with someone from back home at the time, but we were having some troubles. I didn’t realize I was attracted to John until we were on spring break and found myself really missing him.

 

When did you two first start “officially” dating?

We first got together the night we both got back to campus from spring break on St. Patrick’s Day, 2003, but we didn’t become official until April 5th when John asked Melanie to be his girlfriend during an argument about whether he ever asked her to be his girlfriend.

 

What did you two do on your first date?

We weren’t really sure if it was a date at the time, but the first time we went out just the two of us was to China Garden, which was a Chinese buffet where Sweeney’s Bookstore is now. Melanie teased John into paying for both their meals, so we guess you can say it was a date.

 

How did your BSO friends react to your relationship?

At first they were surprised since they all knew of Melanie’s prior relationship, but we think they were generally happy for us. A year later, we played an April Fool’s joke on our BSO friends by going to a party separately and telling everyone we broke up. They were all really upset about the break up, and we got them real good when we yelled “April Fools!”

 

How did being in BSO bring you guys closer together?

If not for BSO, we most likely would not be together. We actually broke up the summer before John was President and Melanie was Vice President of BSO in 2004. Despite our personal issues, we worked really well together to run the organization and we realized we did not want to be with anyone else. If not for having to work so closely with each other, we probably would not have gotten back together.

 

Was it initially hard to stay together after graduation? How did you make it work?

After Melanie graduated from Marquette and landed a job in Milwaukee, and John left Marquette and went back home to California, we really didn’t know where our relationship was going to go being half way across the country from each other. We broke up again until John came back to Milwaukee that November 2005. We have been together ever since.

 

How and when did he propose? When did you guys get married?

John proposed in a very anticlimactic moment on our 4 year anniversary in April 2007. We were supposed to go out that night but fell asleep on the couch after work. When we woke up, the conversation went something like this:

John: “Crap! What time is it?”

Melanie: “I don’t know. Too late to go out to dinner.”

John got up while Melanie went back to sleep. He came back and woke her up.

John: “Will you marry me?”

Melanie (with a tired laugh): “What? Are you serious?”

To this day, she still gives him a hard time about how unromantic the proposal was. We got married in June 2008 at Gesu. Our reception was Marquette themed with each table named as a building on Marquette’s campus.

 

How many BSO members were at the wedding?

There were close to 20 BSO members at our wedding. Two were bridesmaids and one was an usher.

 

Do you still keep in contact with your BSO friends? If so, how often do you see them?

Many of our BSO friends we were especially close to moved out of the area so we don’t see them very often. We do see one BSO friend every few months as we consider her our BFF. It has been difficult to keep in touch with our other BSO friends since we were the first to get married and start a family. Facebook helps us stay connected though.

 

What are you guys up to today? Kids? Jobs?

We own our own home in the far north suburbs of Chicago. We both work for AbbVie (formerly Abbott). John is a supervisor for insurance reimbursement of specialty pharmacy medications, and Melanie manages documents submitted to the FDA for clinical trials. She also blogs at myjoymyworld.com, although she hasn’t written anything in awhile. We have a 6 year old dog, Rex, and a 3 ½ year old daughter, Maliya.

 

What are some of your favorite college memories?

• Marquette going to the Final Four 2003: John ran all the way to the Lake with everyone while Melanie only made it to the Varsity.

• BSO’s first retreat Spring 2004: We stayed at a resort with all the amenities, and since there were a lot of seniors graduating, it was really sentimental.

• Karaoke nights at Melanie’s apartment and Murphy’s with all the great BSO singers.

• Parties…lots of parties.

• FACT and MAFA…every year…no matter how far we had to drive or how bad the roads were.

• MAFA 2006 at Marquette: We were no longer Marquette students, but John was able to get Filipino comedian Rex Navarrete to come be the keynote speaker at MAFA. As a result, we got to hang out with Rex the entire weekend and be his “bodyguards”. And, yes, we named our dog after him.

 

How different do you think your life would be had you not been involved with Bayanihan?

John: It would be different without BSO. I would not have met my wife, and life as I know it today would be completely different. Off the top of my head, as president, I made it a mission to get butts in seats for our BSO meetings since we lost half our roster from graduation alone. O-Fest didn’t help much so I used my resources- being a L.I.M.O driver, any Filipino looking student got a standing invite to come to the meeting with the promise of free food, party info, and the like. I was able to get out of my comfort zone to speak to random people and deliver my elevator speech. Looking back, this experience definitely played a part in my being able to network outside of my organization to recruit talent that I saw would be a great fit for a position I need to fill. I learned how to get a cast of characters with different personalities on the same agenda, and learned on the fly how to get their buy in on different initiatives we wanted to deliver for that year. I learned the beauty of what team building activities can do to the culture of an organization, and the ones that I held with members during meetings are still part of my bag of tricks with my direct reports. I saw how awesome Melanie was. The Cultural Show gave me a chance to showcase my moves to Melanie, since I was partnered up with her. We partnered up again as a couple for the Fusion fashion show; and we partnered up again as president and vice president of the E-Board. Over and over again BSO gave me an avenue to see the best of what Melanie had to offer- the organization highlighted her intelligence, determination, quiet confidence, as well as her outgoing and charming personality. She’s the total package and I am so lucky to be partnered with her for the rest of my life.

 

Melanie: Growing up in white suburbia, I really didn’t know much about my Filipino culture before going to college. By the time I graduated from Marquette, I was choreographing Filipino dances and singing Tagalog songs. Having very little work experience, my involvement as Cultural Events Coordinator (2003-2004) and Vice President (2004-2005) of BSO helped me get my first job out of college as a health insurance underwriter at Assurant Health. And, of course, if not for Bayanihan, I would not have made the friendships I have and met the love of my life.