Back in the fall of 2017, Alex Kirk found herself at a fraternity formal with a date she didn’t particularly fancy. So, she texted Nate Kirk, a classmate whom she had a crush on, to walk her home. 

“After she called me a couple of times, I was like alright, I’ll pick her up and take her home,” he said. “So I took her back to her sorority, and she said ‘I’m not gonna go unless you take me on a date.’” 

If you ask Nate, he would jokingly say that Alex blackmailed him into getting that first date because she wouldn’t let him take her home unless he agreed to take her on a date. 

Alex’s crush on Nate began in a sophomore-year architecture class. She was struggling with one of the concepts and her professor told her to go talk to Nate for help to which she asked who Nate was, she said. 

“I knew who he was though because I had thought he caught me accidentally falling asleep in lecture classes before so I had already seen him looking at me,” Alex said. 

Although a little embarrassed at the thought of Nate catching her sleeping in class, she went up to him anyway and asked for help. This led to them spending a lot of time together working on projects for this class and the development of her crush on him, she said. 

In addition to flirtatious teasing and the ability to make Alex laugh, Nate was willing to put in the time to help Alex succeed in her academics, which is something she had never experienced before, she said. 

Alex ended up securing Nate’s phone number from a classmate which she used to call him on that fateful formal night. 

As more of an introverted person back in college, Nate was drawn to Alex’s energy and outgoing personality, he said. 

“She was super fun to hang out with and we had a group of friends that we did start forming at that time and I was just like, ‘Yes, I can see what’s working out, let’s give it a shot,’” he said. 

For their first date, Alex and Nate went to Black Cypress in downtown Pullman and had a rule to not talk about school or anything related to architecture, which made for some awkward conversation at first, Alex said. 

It was through regular study dates that the two really got to know a lot about each other, Nate said. 

By the middle of their senior year and after talks about what their future was going to look like, Nate knew he wanted to propose, he said. 

The couple just recently had their wedding here in Pullman, as it played a huge part in them becoming husband and wife. 

“Pullman was home, it was us, it’s where we fell in love, where we met and where we knew we wanted to get married,” Alex said. 

The couple even made their first entrance as a married couple to the iconic WSU song “Back Home” and instantly knew there was no place they would rather be for their wedding, she said. 

Alex and Nate now live in Yakima where they work at the same architecture firm. 

“A lot of people think that can be a struggle, but since we did so many of the same classes together, and multiple projects in school, we had difficulties back then, but by the time we graduated, we kind of ironed all that out,” Nate said. 

Since they don’t live too far from Pullman, the couple likes to make it back home at least once a month, and will often get coffee at Roost after church on Sundays.