When Jenny Love, A&S '13, got married to Dustin Jay Bell in La Cañada Flintridge, California, on May 13, 2023, she had no trouble finding something blue. Her ceremony was filled with fellow Blue Jays she'd met as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins. Ashley Hawn, A&S '13, was her maid of honor; Emily Kashka-Ginsburg, A&S '13, and Hannah Miller, A&S '13, were bridesmaids; Reid Ginsburg, A&S '13, served as officiant; and several other Hopkins alumni attended, as well.
"I couldn't be happier for Jenny and Dustin and was so excited to be her maid of honor," Hawn says. "Jenny is my soul sister, and Hopkins led me to her and some other members of my chosen family."
Hawn and Love met when they rushed the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority together in 2010. They cemented their friendship later that fall when they both studied abroad and roomed together on a Hopkins Intersession course in Madrid. They've been close friends ever since.
"Spain, Gilman Atrium, and Carma's Pink Dalmatian cookies will always remind me of Jenny," Hawn says.
Kappa Kappa Gamma featured prominently in the wedding. Love used sorority pins as flair on her bouquet, and at the reception, her sorority sisters sang the Kappa Kappa Gamma song, "Oh, Pat!"
Reid Ginsburg befriended Jenny when they lived four floors apart at 100 West. Now, the distance between them is much greater, but their bond is still close. Ginsburg calls officiating Love's wedding "one of the most gratifying experiences of my adult life."
"Jenny has been a truly wonderful, caring, supportive, and thoughtful friend to me for what feels like thousands of years," he says, "and it felt like giving back in the most meaningful way."
Despite distance and time, Love has maintained her friendships from Hopkins. "My close friend group, which includes Ginsburg and his wife, Emily, and Hannah Miller, has a group chat that's been going on in some form since college. I talk to those people pretty much every day," she says. When COVID-19 swept the country, Love and her friends stayed connected and, in some ways, became even closer.
"Our friendship is a safe place," Hawn says, "full of trust and built by acceptance. No matter where life takes us, I know we'll always have each other."
And how does the groom—a graduate of Saint Michael's College and Northeastern University—feel about all the Johns Hopkins alumni in his life? Love says he doesn't mind: "One of the things that I love about my husband is that he's been so welcomed and fits in so well with all my friends."
