Shelby Friedman ’17 and Tyler Colgate ’18

Tyler and I had the same major, so we spent a majority of our time at UCF in the same building, but never as classmates. Passing each other likes ships in the night, we took all the same classes – in a different order. I was halfway through our senior year when we met, and Tyler was still a junior. We finally crossed paths at Tonight’s the Knight, a UCF RTV program that I was taking as my final Capstone Project. Tyler was volunteering for the show togain experience on the equipment outside of class. If Tyler had not gone above and beyond in his classes, we may never have noticed one another. In the middle of the semester, I went to North Dakota to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline being built above a Native American reservation. When I told the crew that I was going, and asked if anyone would consider donating, Tyler was the only one who did so. I thought that was very sweet and thought of Tyler often while on the reservation. When I got back to UCF after three weeks, Tyler officially asked me out. It was the last episode of Tonight’s the Knight, so this was his final chance. I held back, because I would be graduating and leaving UCF, but we did have a spark between us that we couldn’t ignore. When we had our first kiss, we felt fireworks (that only happens in movies, right?). So, we took a chance. I worked for WUCF for an extra year while Tyler finished his degree, and then we moved to Atlanta. We had been together for eight years, and I told Tyler that we were coming up on being together for a decade. He knew I wanted to get married before that anniversary. He joked that he had two more years to go, and I slapped him playfully. The next day, Tyler took me to my favorite lunch spot in Orlando – Pom Pom’s Tea and Sandwicheria. We decided to go back to campus “for nostalgia’s sake.” Tyler took me to Lake Claire (the site of one of our first dates) and proposed to me on the sand. Our best friend from UCF was filming the whole thing – she cried…a lot. It was a great day, and it was a great place for us to start our next chapter together as fiancés.