Happy Valentines Day Stern Sweethearts!
Office of Alumni Affairs & Annual Giving
Issue date: 2/12/08 Section: Administration
In the Office of Alumni Affairs & Annual Giving, we often talk to alumni who met their valentines at Stern. After hearing countless Stern love stories from our alumni, we thought it was time to celebrate all of the Stern Sweethearts out there. Therefore, we are pleased to present this year's installment of "Stern Sweethearts," couples who met their someone special right here at Stern. As you'll see, whether at a beer blast, orientation, study abroad or spring break - you never know when or where Cupid's arrow will strike!
David Berenger (MBA '01) and Lise Bardin (MBA '98)
As told by David: Lise's and my story could have started a very long time ago, way back in the late 1970s when she and her family began spending summers in Cannes, on the French Riviera. At the time I was living less than 10 miles away with my parents in Valbonne, and over the decade of our adolescence we surely came within a sandy beach of each other many times…but we never met.
From 1996 to 1998, while I embarked on the Langone program and Lise completed the full-time MBA, we surely came even closer on many occasions in the KMC, but there again, we never met!
Life took us on our still separate paths to live in Paris in 2002 and 2003. I thought it would pay off to remain involved as a Stern alumnus (not imagining how well!), and in October 2004 I signed up for the global alumni conference held there. Alumni Affairs helpfully seated me at the same table as Lise, who was and remains the regional alumni leader in France. That dinner is where we met and hit it off. I am forever grateful to another attendee - name unknown - who was sitting between us but left early, allowing us to move one seat closer and become better acquainted!
Our path to becoming a Stern couple was not a smooth one immediately. The next afternoon, I received a sarcastic SMS "especially appreciating my willingness to get up early" - for the regional alumni meeting that Sunday morning. Oops! Nonetheless Lise agreed to a lunch date a week later. Dinner à deux followed, then our first kiss under the moonlight, on a bridge overlooking the Seine; and we went on to move in together the following year, then to our engagement on a beach in Grand Cayman on Valentine's Day 2007. It was at Florence 2007 - so again with a little help from Stern - that we began planning our February 2008 wedding in earnest.
David Berenger (MBA '01) and Lise Bardin (MBA '98)
As told by David: Lise's and my story could have started a very long time ago, way back in the late 1970s when she and her family began spending summers in Cannes, on the French Riviera. At the time I was living less than 10 miles away with my parents in Valbonne, and over the decade of our adolescence we surely came within a sandy beach of each other many times…but we never met.
From 1996 to 1998, while I embarked on the Langone program and Lise completed the full-time MBA, we surely came even closer on many occasions in the KMC, but there again, we never met!
Life took us on our still separate paths to live in Paris in 2002 and 2003. I thought it would pay off to remain involved as a Stern alumnus (not imagining how well!), and in October 2004 I signed up for the global alumni conference held there. Alumni Affairs helpfully seated me at the same table as Lise, who was and remains the regional alumni leader in France. That dinner is where we met and hit it off. I am forever grateful to another attendee - name unknown - who was sitting between us but left early, allowing us to move one seat closer and become better acquainted!
Our path to becoming a Stern couple was not a smooth one immediately. The next afternoon, I received a sarcastic SMS "especially appreciating my willingness to get up early" - for the regional alumni meeting that Sunday morning. Oops! Nonetheless Lise agreed to a lunch date a week later. Dinner à deux followed, then our first kiss under the moonlight, on a bridge overlooking the Seine; and we went on to move in together the following year, then to our engagement on a beach in Grand Cayman on Valentine's Day 2007. It was at Florence 2007 - so again with a little help from Stern - that we began planning our February 2008 wedding in earnest.
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