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More than 30 years after graduation, lifelong friends and Tiger alumni Greg Hartwig ’83 and Susan Harper ’83 went on their first date. Things went well, but the pair decided not to tell any of their mutual friends. At least until they knew it was a sure thing.

“It’s funny because we had always been great friends, and then, suddenly, things started changing,” Greg says. “It’s a strange thing when you have a friendship for such a long time and then you begin to have new, other feelings.”

Wary of jeopardizing a decades-long friendship, Greg and Susan attempted to take things slow, but quickly realized they were falling in love. Just one week into their courtship, they attended their 30th �԰����� reunion. Mistaken as a married couple at the Tower Climb, they surprised two Student Ambassadors when they told them they had only been dating for seven days. ����

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Susan, a journalism and broadcasting major, initially met Greg through his first-year roommate Gregory Tashjian ’83. Greg, a computer science major, says that he and Susan didn’t really have any classes together, but bonded immediately as friends. Never losing touch, Greg and Susan both found themselves single and living in Dallas as adults. Friends were incredulous as to why the pair had never dated before, but were elated when Greg and Susan became engaged, later marrying in June 2015.

“Our wedding was amazing, and friends kept telling us that day how perfect we were together and how much the wedding meant to them,” Susan says. “There is so much that I admire about Greg. All of the things I loved about him as a friend, I benefit from now as his wife.”

Jokingly nicknaming their wedding the “event of the season,” Greg calls Susan one of the most loyal people he knows and loves that she will always be there to look out for him. After their wedding, the duo honeymooned for one week in California’s wine country before setting off for a vacation in Maui.

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Back home in Dallas, Greg, a website designer who works primarily with Zola Levitt Ministries, says he is happily adjusting to married life after many years as a bachelor. The pair have recently moved into a new home and are enjoying exploring Dallas as a couple, visiting the city’s arts district or making trips out to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden. Susan is a retirement planner who says that it does not matter what she and Greg do, as long as they are together.

“I can say that I definitely know the man I married,” Susan says. “I know what a caring person he is because he has always been such a wonderful and supportive friend to me.”

Likening their romance to the 1989 blockbuster��When Harry Met Sally, Susan says that neither she nor Greg could have imagined that they would be married today. Yet, as the pair start their married lives together, both have found the person they will climb Murchison Tower with for many reunions to come.