![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2018\/09\/180818_Rudasill_Merrill_Wedding_0162.jpg\")
<\/a>Elizabeth Merrill \u201900 approaches Lawson Rudasill \u201900 at Lake Andrews, a \u201dfirst look\u201d before their wedding ceremony. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cBut the more they saw each other and reflected on it, the more they realized what nobody anticipated: that a romantic relationship felt right,\u201d as their good friend Cynthia Macht Link \u201900, \u00a0a co-officiant at their wedding in August, said during the ceremony in the Peter J. Gomes Chapel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Elizabeth and Lawson finally decided to be together, it made perfect sense, because the feelings had been there all along.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½-at-ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ wedding was just like what you\u2019d see in the wedding photos in ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Magazine<\/i> \u2014 with classmates and alumni who\u2019d become close during college and remained close over two decades, moves, marriages, and children.<\/p>\n Abby Raelin, a close family friend of Elizabeth Merrill \u201900, signs the Ketubah, a traditional Jewish marriage contract, by Lake Andrews on Aug. 18, shortly before Merrill and Lawson Rudasill’s wedding ceremony. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n During their sophomore year, Merrill and Link were rooming together, and Rudasill was roommates with Ed Pauker \u201900, Ted Martin \u201900, and Mark Douthat \u201901. The two sets of roommates found kindred spirits in each other. They moved to suites across the hall from one another in John Bertram Hall during their junior year, Kate Dodson \u201900 and Abigail Goen Helfat \u201900 joining Merrill and Link. They played foosball in the men\u2019s dorm room, went to each other\u2019s hockey and Ultimate Frisbee games, and threw parties.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had such a good circle of friends with Liz and Cynthia and others,\u201d said Ed Pauker, the other co-officiant at the wedding. \u201cLiz and Cynthia would show up at the dorm and it would turn from being four boys with stained jeans, to an actual party.<\/p>\n \u201cI think our relationship was very chummy, very silly. As a group we were dorky and ridiculous,\u201d said Merrill, interviewed along with Rudasill before their wedding.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was, who can make the other person laugh the most?\u201d Rudasill added.<\/p>\n Roommates at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Ted Martin \u201900 helps out Mark Douthat \u201901, shortly before their college roommate Lawson Rudasill \u201900 marries Elizabeth Merrill \u201900. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n Merrill studied psychology and Spanish and studied in Spain and Ecuador. \u201cShe always wanted to go to every party,\u201d Link said. \u201cShe had a lot of friends. You could call her the life of the party, but she was also very smart and serious about her academics. She was very open to trying everything at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s probably the moment I was like, \u2018She\u2019s awesome.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rudasill, meanwhile, played Ultimate Frisbee and was involved in the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Democrats. \u201cHe was really idealistic about the world,\u201d Link said. \u201cHe still is. He\u2019s passionate about his ideals.\u201d<\/p>\n During their junior year, the group threw a surprise party for Jon Adler \u201900. Merrill and Rudasill described the scene in the basement of JB as raucous, like most of their parties.<\/p>\n A camcorder, supplied by Rudasill, captured Merrill walking across the room. \u201cIt\u2019s the way she bobbed across the room, the way her hair goes back and forth, and she\u2019s smiling and laughing and just full of life,\u201d Rudasill said. \u201cThat\u2019s probably the moment I was like, \u2018She\u2019s awesome.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Cynthia Macht Link \u201900 and Ed Pauker \u201900 prepare to officiate the wedding of their ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ friends Elizabeth Merrill \u201900 and Lawson Rudasill \u201900 at the Gomes Chapel on Aug. 18. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n After graduation, Merrill, Rudasill, and their friends went their separate ways. Rudasill moved to Colorado, then worked in politics in Missouri before returning to Champaign, Ill., his hometown. Merrill worked in Massachusetts before earning a doctor of psychology degree at the Wright Institute and then settling in New York City as a psychologist. Rudasill married and divorced; Merrill \u201cdated a lot,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The two friends kept in touch. They went to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Reunions, and when Facebook came out, they talked over Messenger. They went to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ friends\u2019 weddings and visited them when they had kids.<\/p>\n \u201cWe loved to swing dance, so we were always swing dancing together at every wedding,\u201d Merrill said.<\/p>\n But for nearly 20 years, dating didn\u2019t occur to either of them, or to their friends.<\/p>\n \u201cThey both had different ideas of who they should get married to, and they were dating people who are not like each other at all,\u201d said Cynthia Link, who stayed roommates with Merrill in Massachusetts and California. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things where the right person for you is not the person who you maybe had on paper.\u201d<\/p>\n Friends and family fill Gomes Chapel for the ceremony. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n Still, theirs was a valuable friendship. \u201cThe main thing about them is that Elizabeth and Lawson are completely accepting of each other exactly as they are,\u201d Link said.<\/p>\n By 2014, both Merrill and Rudasill were both single again, still living half the country away from each other and talking over the phone and Facebook Messenger. Slowly, the qualities that made them such good friends made them think something more was possible.<\/p>\n Said Merrill of Rudasill: \u201cI think he is the kindest person, just the nicest person.\u201d<\/p>\n Rudasill of Merrill: \u201cIt\u2019s her love for life, her desire to see the world and meet new people and have new experience \u2014 that was exactly what I was looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n Merrill began inviting Rudasill on singles\u2019 trips that she took. \u201cFinally,\u201d she said, \u201con one phone call, he let me know he would be jealous if I found someone on one of these trips, so that\u2019s how I realized he might have feelings for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Elizabeth Merrill \u201900 is walked down the aisle by her parents, Jack Merrill \u201956 and Diane Merrill. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n To \u201ctest the waters,\u201d Merrill said, in January 2015 the pair met in Minneapolis and stayed with Rudasill\u2019s old roommate, Ted Martin. At Martin\u2019s house, a romance finally blossomed.<\/p>\n Their getting together initially surprised their ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ friends. But then, things clicked. Memories took on new meaning. At one point during the junior-year party in JB, Merrill had got hold of Rudasill\u2019s camcorder. \u201cMy sister watched the video about a year ago, and she said, \u2018Oh my God, you can\u2019t take the video camera off Lawson, you\u2019re on him the entire time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Rudasill and Merrill dated long-distance at first, talking for hours over Skype and visiting each other around the country. Just a few months after that fateful trip to Minneapolis, Merrill moved to Champaign, getting a job at the Veterans Affairs hospital. Harking back to their college days, the couple threw themed parties \u2014 murder mystery, \u201990s, pajama. They traveled around the Midwest and South, and back to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ for the Reunion of Merrill\u2019s father, Jack Merrill \u201956.<\/p>\n As the ceremony concludes, Lawson Rudasill \u201900 breaks the glass, a familiar ritual of a Jewish wedding ceremony. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n Their relationship brought their friends closer together, Pauker said, especially after they got engaged and secured one of the limited opportunities to have a reception at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.<\/p>\n \u201cLiz and Lawson coming full circle from friendship to finding each other and solidifying the relationship at Ted\u2019s house, they made this group kind of live again, as opposed to rehashing old times,\u201d Pauker said. \u201cIt became a group that actually created new memories as well.\u201d<\/p>\n For Merrill and Rudasill, a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ wedding, though more than a year of conversations with Conferences and Campus Events in the making, would not be a destination wedding \u2014 the couple moved to Portland, Maine, this year.<\/p>\n But marrying on campus was a no-brainer. \u201cWe grew up at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½,\u201d Merrill said. \u201cSome of the dearest people in the world to us are from ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.\u201d<\/p>\n With relief and happiness, newly married Elizabeth Merrill \u201900 and Lawson Rudasill \u201900 leave the Gomes Chapel. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)<\/p><\/div>\n The couple\u2019s rehearsal dinner in Poland, Maine, on Aug. 17 contained an extra surprise. Merrill and Rudasill had been trying to have a baby since 2016, Merrill wrote about their experience with IVF in the Huffington Post<\/a>. They finally conceived this year, and at the dinner, they announced they were having a girl.<\/p>\n The following day, rain threatened but held off long enough for the bride and groom to take pictures and sign the Ketubah by the Puddle.<\/p>\n The Jewish ceremony in the Gomes Chapel was officiated by Link and Pauker, and Martin was a holder of the chuppah, a canopy under which Jewish couples marry. Douthat was a groomsman, Rachel Bobruff \u201900 a bridesmaid, and Merrill\u2019s sister Lauren Faison \u201902 the matron of honor.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>