My wife seems to slip into every story I tell. There was her rom-com worthy proposal, the proper full-length wedding dress from Vinted, and her debut as my knight in shining armour when she rescued me from the floor of Mash. So trust me when I say I know what it’s like to love your spouse with every fibre of your being. But, then again, I’m talking about my college wife. When I mention her to home friends, I’m met with a confused look in response. “Oh sorry, I should have clarified! Cambridge has a strange tradition, you see…” and so it goes. But while I didn’t marry my college wife, someone did.

Meet the newlyweds, two second years at Downing who, for the purposes of this article, wish to remain anonymous. My chosen pseudonyms? Izzy and Dan. They’re not only happily college married, but really and truly married. You heard me. Their commitment to one another far exceeds the regular bounds of Cambridge’s whimsical, purely platonic tradition – in fact, I almost wondered if I’d turned invisible halfway through our conversation because their eyes were permanently glued to each others’ faces. And yet, it wasn’t always plain sailing; even for them, the sea was choppy along the way.

“Could they be anymore destined to fall in love?”

Their meet-cute is, quite frankly, just that little bit too cute, that kind of cute which is actually sickening precisely because it is so cute. Let me set the scene: across Downing’s crowded dining hall, their eyes meet at a Halloween formal, soon struck by the realization that they had dressed in matching pirate costumes. Could their love story be any more fated? Izzy, a sneaky paparazzo at heart, told me how she caught Dan on video while pretending to capture the event, collecting footage of the mystery pirate man to rewatch later.

Their next rendezvous knocks those cuteness levels down a notch by bringing Revs into the picture, the place where romance usually goes to die. I guess the usual drunk and uninspired efforts at flirting weren’t so hopeless for this pair. By sheer fate, these star-crossed lovers lived in opposite staircases at college, leading to the pirates’ reunion at pres. “She just looked so beautiful that day,” Dan told me, in a way that made me want to simultaneously melt and hurl at the romance of it all. Izzy, a VIP member of the I’ve-fancied-every-English-teacher-I’ve-ever-had club, was delighted to discover Dan was an Engling himself. She then promptly embarrassed him by having read more of his bookshelf than he had. They also bonded over an alarming ability to quote Cars 2; peak romance if you ask me.

But the sudden onslaught of feelings, which felt too good to be true after such a short amount of time, was too frightening a prospect: “we’ll call it denial,” said Dan. The pair found themselves returning to Cambridge after Christmas, barely even friends following frequent arguments – of course, strong emotions bring strong explosions with them. It was Izzy who extended the first olive branch and rekindled their friendship.

“Gentlemen, listen up”

Fast forward to Dan’s birthday, an occasion which people typically ignored – but not Izzy. She spent the entire day celebrating with him, revolutionizing his concept of birthdays forevermore. Come Izzy’s birthday in February, and it was about time he repaid the favour. Mid-term, Izzy confessed that all she really wished for was to be whisked away somewhere new. Cue Dan’s romantic getaway to the Cotswolds in lovely old lady June’s idyllic cottage. Gentlemen, listen up. In the words of Taylor Swift: “that’s how it works. That’s how you get the girl.” “It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me,” Izzy admitted, as she began to accept the terrifying magnitude of her feelings.

To all the avoidants out there, here’s a lesson on vulnerability: one night, believing Dan was fast asleep, Izzy finally admitted her true feelings for him. But, plot twist, he wasn’t really asleep. Even bigger plot twist, he panicked and couldn’t say it back: “it was scary to know that someone could have so much control over you and that I could start to fall in love.” The rest of the trip was then spent as awkward acquaintances, desperately trying to pretend one hadn’t just professed their undying love for the other… until one CamFess post rudely interrupted Dan’s hesitancy, complimenting Izzy as: “the hot Asian girl who’s like five foot tall at Downing”. It’s true what they say, you don’t know what you’ve lost until it’s gone, or rather, appreciated by someone else. It seems this was the kick up the arse Dan needed to swallow his pride, a feat most men struggle to complete, and apologise for the huge mistake he’d made. “Life,” he said, “is way more depressing without you, and I’ve taken that for granted.” Playing hard to get and playing it well – oh, how the tables have turned – Izzy rejected him. Briefly. But, let’s be honest, grand gestures win hearts, and Dan came armed with a long list of “the tiny details I love about Izzy,” dinner dates after work, home-cooked meals, and flowers at the end of lectures. Resistance was futile.

“Grand declarations of love are something we should mourn the loss of”

Since then, it’s been a full-throttle romance – the two make art together, write each other love letters, and even run a blog. “Everyone is so cynical now but I truly think people can fall in love, just like that,” Izzy declared, as if she were a Jane Austen heroine stood in the rain in a Regency bonnet. For her, grand declarations of love are something we should mourn the loss of – everything now is always planned and measured. “Why is everyone planning their wedding for five years?” Izzy questioned, deciding to plan hers in five minutes instead.

One spontaneous stumble into a picturesque village chapel later and they were married in the Cotswolds. Inspired by the freedom of irregular marriages in early modern Scotland, when no documents needed signing and all that marriage required was mutual consent, Izzy felt that this kind of commitment was a lot more ‘human’ than anything paperwork could represent. Ah, bureaucracy, the real enemy of romance. Their wedding, technically an elopement, was officiated by a friend and witnessed by one bemused passer-by, roped in to do so. Honestly? Iconic and inspirational. As Izzy said, they went offline on the trip and: “with no phones to occupy us, what else were we supposed to do?” Personally, nothing springs to mind. I would have gotten hitched, too.

“Running away to get married might be a crazy thing to do, but maybe we should all be a bit less sensible”

Of course, when Easter term finally arrived in all its glory, they were married again in college, as per Cambridge tradition – except usually the pair aren’t already husband and wife. “The more people see of us, the less they doubt” – all scepticism seems to disintegrate in the face of true love. Running away to get married might be a crazy thing to do, but maybe we should all be a bitless sensible. In a world that’s obsessed with what’s practical and safe, commitment and vulnerability have become something we tend to skirt around. Their biggest advice? Be vulnerable and do it for the plot.

Ever since, married life at Downing has meant charity shop dates for future house trinkets, reels that hint at acquiring future cats and dogs, and a lot of heartfelt effort. As Dan explained, it really doesn’t matter if it’s not your natural love language, you should want to learn your partners in order to make them feel special. Virtually every day the two are together: “we always decide to be present [offline].” Though college life together has been a tasty morsel of married life, they can’t wait to live together after graduation. “Next, we want to sign those papers properly and celebrate with our closest friends and family.” Until then, Izzy and Dan remain firmly committed to being ridiculously in love, both as college spouses and as actual husband and wife. On that note, would anyone like to take me to the Cotswolds?