When Damien and Krystal McCants entered their wedding reception to “Enter Sandman,” the other Hokies in the chapel knew what to do: they just started jumping.
At the May 2008 reception, the newly married couple cut a cake embellished with a sugary Virginia Tech athletic logo, drank from embossed Virginia Tech champagne flutes, and danced in a room filled with maroon and white decor.
Their wedding was in many ways homage to the place where they met, fell in love, got engaged (specifically, in the gazebo by the Duck Pond), and, they say, the place they became the people they are today.
Now, 15 years since their undergraduate years at Virginia Tech, it’s a place they return to visit every year without fail. As young professionals living and working in Northern Virginia, the pair are still committed to living in service to the university they graduated from in 2003 and the place they call home by donating and joining advisory boards.
“For me, Virginia Tech is a huge part of who I am,” Krystal said. “It’s such a huge part of my life that I can’t just forget because, you know, without Virginia Tech, obviously I wouldn’t have gotten, I don’t think, the same caliber of education.”