After the Aisle: Sunset Wishes

After two scrubbed attempts at a proposal, nothing could deter Nick Yurco ’20 from asking Ann Ludlow ’20 for her hand in marriage. Not even a few beached jellyfish.

Unaware of Nick’s ploy, Ann trod carefully with Nick along the shore of Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina until they arrived at a secluded point. Per childhood tradition, Ann asked Nick to close his eyes and make a wish just before the sun dipped below the horizon.

Nick summoned the courage to drop to a knee, place a ring on Ann’s finger and ask her to be his wife. “She was freaking out,” says Nick, whose only wish was a successful proposal. Moments before, Ann recalls just wanting peace of mind for the next phase of their relationship as Nick was headed to Atlanta to take a new job.

That was May 2022. The two met in 2016 during “freshman serenade,” a tradition where young men are corralled at various campus housing facilities and then belt out pop songs to young women watching the spectacle from their balconies. They, in turn, shower candy upon the crooners.

Nick and Ann dated that first year, but things went sideways, and they wondered aloud if they were too young to understand what they needed from each other.

“It was a bad breakup,” remembers Ann.

“Yeah, that bridge was burned. It was in ashes,” Nick says. It took time and support from friends to restore the relationship.

During sophomore year, Nick, a computer science major, and Ann, who was on an art scholarship, landed in the same calculus class with now-retired Professor Marty Cook. “I nearly had a heart attack,” Nick says, when Ann walked into class for the first time. At Nick’s urging, they sat beside each other, made amends and a rich friendship ensued.

They remember Sunday morning omelets at the Dining Hall and conversations on the benches circling Furman Lake. They devised a system of ranking benches on a scale of 1 to 10. The swinging bench on the far shore of Furman Lake is the only 10, they insist.

Senior year brought a renewed romance. Later, the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

On their spring break trip in 2020, they were elated to learn break would be extended by another week, but somewhat disappointed that classes would go online to finish the semester.

“COVID was a terrible thing, but it was kind of a blessing for our relationship,” Ann says. “We were planning on breaking up after graduation because I was moving to Charleston and Nick was moving to Wisconsin for a job. It didn’t make sense to do long distance,” she recounts.

Ann had carried a heavy course load at Furman and met the prerequisites to enroll in a selective occupational therapy program at the Medical University of South Carolina where classes were online. That meant Ann could visit Nick in Wisconsin for weeks at a time and still remain on track.

Ann graduated in 2023 with a clinical doctorate in occupational therapy that allows her to deliver in-home care to Upstate patients. “Now that Ann is making the big bucks,” Nick jokes, he’s logging flight hours to secure his dream of becoming a commercial airline pilot.

Married Oct. 14, 2023, Nick and Ann count Furman as the most foundational part of their relationship.

“We’ve been together four years straight. We treasure the support from our friends, professors and staff at Furman,” Ann says. “I wouldn’t change a thing,” Nick adds.