The Love Story of Carly Brianne Floyd and Nicholas Ryan Sherman


It all started for them in 2013 when Carly was a freshman at Illinois Wesleyan University...and dating someone else! Her boyfriend at that time had mentioned he hadn't had much luck finding romance, especially because his profile on the dating website OkCupid was "pretty off-putting." Curious to know what could be so bad, Carly made a profile in order to view it, and was matched up with Nick! Nick was in his last year at Illinois State University, just a mile down the road. Many of his friends had recently graduated, and he was trying to make new connections and find new friends. Carly and Nick started a casual correspondence, and Nick even invited her to a New Year's Eve party he was having with a few friends. Unfortunately, Carly would be home in Milwaukee over winter break and unable to attend. Conversation gradually became more sporadic, eventually slowing to nothing. It could have ended there.

Several months later, Carly was home in Wisconsin for the summer helping her mother move from Milwaukee to Waterford. Taking a break from unpacking boxes, and 45 minutes away from her friends in the city, she pulled out her phone and logged onto the OkCupid app. She scrolled through the few messages she had collected in the months since she had been on, and saw that she had a message waiting from Nick, sent a few weeks prior. She remembered having had good conversations with him, so she responded. In the boredom of the summer, they talked a lot. And then a lot more.

Carly was still in a relationship, but coming to view it as an unhappy one. Furthermore, her boyfriend had graduated and was considering moving home to Colorado. Faced with the possibility of continuing a relationship she was increasingly frustrated with and adding the struggle of distance, Carly started to consider ending the relationship. Meanwhile, things with Nick were going well. He became a close confidante and a sounding board for all of Carly's complaints and insecurities in her current relationship.

Nick, meanwhile, was falling hard for Carly. He was trying to be a good friend and a welcome ear, but he couldn't help but think that he would treat her better than the guy she was currently dating. Carly was starting to think the same.

Nick knew that whatever happened, he had to meet Carly in person when she returned to Illinois for school. Despite how close she felt to Nick, Carly was still nervous about the idea of meeting a stranger she met online in real life. What if he was a creep? He was a few years older, after all. Or worse...what if they had nothing to talk about once they met face-to-face and it was awkward?

So Carly devised a plan. The Wisconsin State Fair was coming up, and Carly thought it would be the perfect place to finally meet. She would be on her "home turf" so to speak, in a place that was comfortable and familiar. Even better, there would be hundreds of people on the fairgrounds, and it was a very public place in case things started to go south. There were also plenty of things to do and see at the fair--lots of distractions in case the conversation dried up!

So Nick made the 3 hour drive north to take a gamble on a girl. And far from being awkward, Nick and Carly really hit it off. So much so that they weren't content to end their day when they got rained out after a few hours at the fair. They drove to Mayfair mall. They went shopping for groceries and Carly made dinner at her mom's house in Waterford. They watched a movie. Their time together was further extended when they discovered that Nick had locked his keys in his car. It was a few more hours until someone could drive down from Milwaukee late on a Sunday night to open his vehicle! So they had plenty of time to reflect on the day and what it meant for them going forward.

When Nick finally made the drive home after the perfect day with Carly, he was a in a depressed slump. He had fallen hard, but the fact of the matter was that Carly was in a relationship, and he didn't know if he would have a chance with this amazing Wisconsin girl.

And yet, when Carly moved back in for her second year at IWU and found that her boyfriend's move to Colorado was looking inevitable, she decided to end things with him once and for all. Luckily, Nick was waiting in the wings to catch her. Nick cooked her dinner and asked her out officially on August 27th, 2014, and they've been together ever since! They moved in together, adopted three adorable cats (Calypso, Vincent, and Koshka) and more recently, two birds (Dmitri and Clopin) and knew that marriage was in the cards.

Nick proposed to Carly at Boo Park in Carbondale, IL. It was a special place for both of them, as it was one of the first places they visited on their first overnight trip away together in October 2014. That trip was scheduled around Vulture Fest, a music and crafts festival located in the quaint town of Makanda in Southern Illinois. It was also Carly's first time meeting Nick's family in his hometown of Steeleville!

In October of 2018, they planned a trip back down to Southern Illinois for Vulture Fest, which would be their first time back for the festival since their trip four years ago. They had not been back to Boo Park since then either, and Nick thought it would be the perfect place to propose. It was a place he had fond memories of from his adolescence, but it was also a special place from their past and a place he could picture taking any future children to visit. Knowing Carly hadn't been subtle about wanting him to propose and knowing that she would be suspicious of a sentimental trip away, he engaged in some deception. Nick told Carly that he was waiting on his commission checks to come in before he could think about buying a ring, and that there was no way he would have the money together before then. That was actually mostly true, so Carly was disappointed but understanding. Using all of his resources, however, Nick called up Carly's dad to ask for an advance on his second commission check in order to have the ring ready for their upcoming trip. Carly's father was only too happy to agree to loan him the money, and Nick sneakily made all the arrangements while Carly was busy with fall travel for her job in admissions.

When they pulled up to Boo Park with his parents on October 20th, 2018, Carly thought about what Nick had said about this being the perfect place to propose, and thought that he might have been fooling her about not having the money. Her hopes were quickly dashed when Nick once again apologized for not being able to make it work, and lamented about having to find a place with just as much significance. Before leaving the park, Nick mentioned wanting to stop at the big dragon statue to take a few pictures. Nick snapped a few pictures of Carly with his parents, and then asked if they would take a picture of Nick and Carly together. Carly posed for a few silly pictures, thinking that his parents were snapping shots. In reality, they were filming, and captured the moment when Nick got down on one knee. Carly was so surprised and excited that at first she forgot to say yes! The happy couple spent the rest of the day enjoying Vulture Fest and the shops in Makanda, and wrapped up with a wonderful dinner at the famous Quatro's Deep Pan Pizza.