All you need is love. This seems to be the recent motto of Trinity Western University students as more and more couples get engaged. And why shouldn’t they? The weather is getting warmer, the trees are budding, and the clouds are slowly dispersing. It’s the “ring by spring” phenomena, and it’s in full effect.

Roughly 30 Trinity couples got engaged this year, and one couple even got pre-engaged. Local jewelers have reported a 15 percent increase in sales due to the spring season and they keep rising.

Some students are skeptical of the frenzy, however. Courtney Jones defines the phenomena as an “attempt to gain some stability and continuity amidst the stress and change that summer brings, especially for those graduating for whom often little else is certain.”

According to the manager at People’s Jewelers in Langley, the TWU students that have come in were all “well grounded and seem to know what they are doing.” With relatively few ring returns this year (which cost students an average of $1000-1500), he reported a 30 per cent increase in ring sales since last year at this time, although he is unsure of the reason.

Yet for one fourth year student, the reason was obvious. Getting engaged was an easy decision after two and half months of dating.

Some students believe that the Christian atmosphere at TWU is a factor in increasing engagements. Rachel Elder thinks that because “TWU is more community based than other universities, it’s a natural process for students to end in marriage.”

But for some, the idea of “bridal quest” suits just fine.

“You go to university to get married!” an anonymous female student said. “Where else are you going to meet a husband?”

Many students, however, admit frustration with dating practices at TWU.
“The Christian idea is that you will marry the person you are dating,” said third year student Rachel Curtis.

“Casual dating is absolutely impossible at Trinity because you are considered a whore or a player,” said Tom Parks. “The attitude at Trinity is that if I go out on a date with someone, it’s assumed that there is the potential of something long term.” Parks feels this should not be the case.

“How can you get to know what kind of woman you want to marry, let alone the woman to marry, without going out and engaging with members of the opposite sex?” he asks.

Some couples may feel pressured to hop on the “engagement bandwagon” as their friends and roommates commit to one another.

Fourth year student Jon Van Popta dated his fiancé for almost two years before proposing. The only pressure he felt to propose occurred because wedding plans needed to be out in the open.

Austin Malnis, a fourth year student, was dating his fiancé for a year and nine months before they were engaged. He said he did not feel any pressure from others.

“It was just one of those things people always tell me, ‘you’ll know when you are ready,’” he said, “and so, I just waited around until I knew when”.

Malnis shared a bit of advice for couples considering commitment: “do as much as you can in your dating relationship, because once you get engaged everything gets compounded,” he said. “The more issues that you can deal with while you are dating, the easier your engagement is. Enjoy being friends.”