Happy Valentine’s Day!
There's nothing we love more than love. To celebrate Valentine's Day, we spoke with alumni who found their soulmate while studying at Newcastle University.
2 February 2026
Meet the cross-continent couples who found love on campus.
This Valentine’s Day, we spoke with six couples from our alumni community to hear about their international love stories, from those celebrating over 50 years of marriage to those recently engaged and about to embark on life together!
From date night at the Trent House to family life in Texas
Megan Colvin (MA Museum Studies, 2013) met her husband Sebastian Saucedo (MA International Politics, 2013) when they were both living in Leazes Terrace as postgrad students. Despite both living on the other side of the Pond – Megan is from Texas and Sebastian from Mexico – it took studying in the UK for the pair to find each other!
Over a decade later, the pair are married with a little girl. Megan told us:
“We had an amazing group of friends at Leazes Terrace that we hung out with on a regular basis, so we were around each other quite a bit, but it wasn’t until a group trip to Poland in spring 2013 that we really started talking. Our first date was in the May, at an “American” diner which I believe has since closed. We spent many evenings at the Trent House and had a couple of special dates at El Coto, which I still crave.
“In August of 2013, after our programs had ended, I moved back to Texas, and Sebastian went home to Mexico a few months later. We really had no idea what our relationship would look like but thought we would give it a try. Somehow, we kept it going and got married in Texas in July 2016.
“Our wedding was extra special because our ‘Newcastle friends’ came from around the world to celebrate with us- Scotland, Germany, Austria, Canada, Greece. Three of our wedding party were Newcastle University graduates!”
Class of 2024 graduates planning the perfect Newcastle wedding
A chance meeting outside of Leazes Parade student accommodation was the beginning of our final alumni love story.
Czech national (BA Journalism, Media and Culture, 2024) and Alexander Walker (BA Hons English Literature, 2023; MA Media and Public Relations, 2024) were both living in the Halls of Residence, but parted ways without exchanging details. A few months later, they matched on a dating app – and the rest is history! Alice, who now works at Newcastle University Business School, told us:
“Our first date was a tour of different places around Newcastle. We started at the Students’ Union bar, Luther's, before heading into town for drinks at The Botanist and The Bridge Hotel. We then enjoyed a walk on the Tyne Bridge before heading home. It was very romantic, but also very cold as it was November!
“Three years on, in November 2025 we got engaged and are planning to get married in summer 2027. We’re still in the early stages of planning but definitely want to get married in Newcastle where it all started.”
Loved up pair feeling on top of the world as they mark 25 years wed
New Zealand native Kathleen Logan met her husband David Langrish while completing her PhD in Physiological Sciences on campus through a local mountaineering group. While David wasn’t a current student on campus, he had previously gained a PGCE from the university.
In a touching tribute to how they first met, David proposed to Kathleen on the summit of Mount Cook – the tallest mountain in New Zealand – at the turn of the century and they were married in late 2001 in Upper Hutt near Wellington (fondly called the Seven Year Hitch!)
Speaking to us ahead of their 25th wedding anniversary later this year, Kathleen told us:
“A fellow research assistant knew Dave through the climbing fraternity and invited me to a party they were having – I was in the Newcastle University Mountaineering Club – pointing Dave out across the crowded room. We began climbing together and after a trip to El Chorro over Christmas and New Year, started dating.
“Our first date was to see the fantastic Pulp Fiction at the cinema, but our favourite place to get together was the climbing wall or places in Northumberland like Back Bowden or Bowden Doors at weekends.
"After I graduated we travelled via USA for some climbing and skiing and then back to Aotearoa New Zealand where I worked as a post-doc. We continued to pursue mountain activities including climbing Aoraki, Mt Cook - the highest mountain in New Zealand. Dave proposed to me on the summit! Of course, I said yes (after all - he was holding the other end of the rope!)"
Campus curated romance that’s gone the distance
German native Elisabeth Salmen and Geordie John Jo Murray met while studying Museum Studies at Newcastle University, but it wasn’t until Elisabeth moved back to Germany that their love story began. Elisabeth told us:
"I came over to Newcastle to study, but also to learn the language a bit more too. So it was hard to communicate with John Jo due to his broad Geordie English! And although we did spend some time together during the Master’s, we never really got together as a couple: it was only after seeing each other at the graduation ceremony that we started writing via Facebook.
By then, I had moved back to Hamm in Germany and John Jo was working in Newcastle. For about 4 months we wrote daily messages. It was the best thing, starting the day reading and writing to each other. We talked about anything: books, music, history, art and so on. Because of this, we got to know each other very well, and our whole relationship is built on talking about everything."
The pair enjoyed their first date in South Shields, walking along the beach and in Marine Park followed by ice cream at Minchella's. Following months of making the relationship work long-distance, Elisabeth took the plunge to move back to Newcastle - and hasn't looked back since! In 2021, the couple got married in Germany, and speaking of the special day, Elisabeth told us:
"As you would expect from two School of Arts graduates, we found a lovely venue: a medieval watchtower in Cologne. The law in Germany doesn’t allow legal marriages in such venues so we had a second wedding two days later, just the two of us, at the Civic Centre in Hamm. We celebrated with an ice cream – just like our first date."
The couplepreneurs making marketing easy
Rojin Yarahmadi (MSc Digital Business, 2020) and Nikolaos Benopoulos (MSc Digital Business (e-Marketing), 2020) met while studying at Newcastle University Business School and quickly became partners – both romantic and professional.
The pair, who hail from Iran and Greece, are founders of Polybox, marketing software that utilises AI to produce insights and reports with a few clicks. Speaking of their love story, Rojin told us:
“We met on the very first day during the meet-and-greet session. I arrived a few minutes late, and Nick was the second person I spoke to, I just jumped into a conversation with him, and I liked him straight away. We then realised we were on similar courses and had several classes together, so we naturally started hanging out as part of a group of friends. About 4 months later, we started dating.
"Our first date was at Vicolo by Tyneside. I was working in a shop in Newcastle city centre at the time, and after my shift, Nick came to pick me up. We had a really lovely coffee together there in February 2020.”
Speaking on the dynamic of being both business partners and life partners, Nick said:
“We separate the two. At work we are co-founders that talk to each other but in our private life we are ourselves again. It took some time to get to that place, but we made it work. In 2026, we’re looking forward to growing Polybox, with more features in the platform that our customers want and more collaboration with awesome organisations and people that will benefit everyone involved.”
Have you got an alumni love story to share?
If you met your significant other during your student days, we’d love to hear from you!