Ve Bui loved high school so much that he thought it would go on forever.
In a way it has.
Often referred to as the mayor of his 1992 class at Indianola High School in Indianola, Iowa, Mr. Bui has hosted reunions for his approximately 175 classmates every five years since graduating. Brenda Renée Langstraat has never missed one.
On July 30, the two classmates, now 48 and living in Chicago, will attend their 30th reunion as newlyweds.
Born in Vietnam, Mr. Bui was 2 when Saigon fell in 1975. His mother fled the coastal town of Vung Tau with him and his nine siblings, eventually taking them to Iowa. (His father, who was imprisoned at the time, would join them seven years later, in 1982.)
In 1978, Mr. Bui attended the same Indianola kindergarten class as Mrs. Langstraat, who is the middle of three sisters and grew up on Dutch Ridge Ranch, a 220-acre cattle ranch on the outskirts of town.
“We knew each other growing up but were more sociable in high school,” said Mr. Bui. He was on the wrestling team. Mrs. Langstraat, much more reserved and eager to learn, was on the track team.
As teenagers, they went to the same parties and “scooped the loop,” as they called it: driving down Indianola’s main drag on Friday nights looking for friends to hang out at the local pizza, burger, or ice cream parlor. “In a city of 15,000 people, everyone knew everyone,” said Mr Bui. At the time, he was known for making mischief. In the last year of his yearbook, Mrs. Langstraat wrote: “Try to stay out of trouble this summer.”
After graduation, they went their separate ways: he to the University of Iowa and she to Wheaton College. She later received a master’s degree in English from the University of Illinois, Chicago.
By the time of their 25th reunion, in 2017, they were both living in Chicago, where Mrs. Lang Street, who was recently divorced, attended more than 20 galas a year as the principal of Working in the Schools, a public school literacy organization in Chicago.
“Are you coming to one of my galas?” she remembered asking Mr. Bui, who agreed on several occasions. Known as the high school fashionista, he quickly went from one tuxedo to three.
About the time he started accompanying her to events, she started watching Iowa Hawkeyes games in bars with him and his friends. In May 2018, after a Chicago Run gala, the two had their first kiss.
That summer, when they spent boozy afternoons around the pool at the private club Soho House Chicago, of which she is a member, “a switch flipped,” she said. “We were in love.”
The following year, in the summer of 2019, he sold his apartment in the River North area of the city and moved into her home in the West Loop. By the fall, they had moved to a larger apartment nearby.
After the pandemic arrived in March 2020, “we learned to figure out Covid together,” Ms Langstraat said. They even dressed up for virtual galas. Now the president and chief executive of the Chicago Public Library Foundation, she continues to attend formal events with Mr. Bui, a technical sales consultant at the Chicago office of Okta, a technology identity management firm.
On December 30, 2021, he proposed marriage in the Signature Room, the restaurant atop the John Hancock Tower, and recited a line in English and Spanish from “Dan in Real Life,” a film starring Steve Carell. “Love is not a feeling, it is an ability,” he said. When Mr. Bui took out the ring, she reached for it. “You have to say ‘yes’ first,” he teased, pulling it back.
The pair celebrated their union at two events. First, there was a traditional Vietnamese tea ceremony at her parents’ farm on June 4, during which Mr. Bui’s parents presented a dowry with jewelry and a 40-pound roast pig.
On June 10, they were married at Curate, an event space in Des Moines, in front of 300 guests. The Rev. Josh Blakesley, a United Church of Christ minister and the homecoming king of their high school class, performed. The bride, taking the groom’s name, wore glittery red shoes with her wedding dress; a theme of the event was “there’s no place like home”, a nod to their shared hometown.
Now it’s on to the next party: “I have to make sure everyone registers for the class reunion,” said Mr. Bui.
