Unbreakable bonds: Across time and distance, Olivia Beech and Matthew Pottle relish their storybook romance

By Sian Wilkerson

Nearly a decade later, Olivia Beech still remembers – with crystal clarity – the moment she first laid eyes on Matthew Pottle.

Then a third-year international studies major at Virginia Commonwealth University, Beech was living in the West Grace North residence hall on the Monroe Park Campus alongside international students. Though she’d met plenty of fellow residents, she hadn’t met Pottle, an exchange student from the United Kingdom studying mathematics.

During a gathering at a friend’s apartment, “this lovely creature walks through the door, and I saw him immediately and I was like, ‘Hello?’” Beech said, affecting a look of shock. “I just thought, ‘He’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’”

A self-described extrovert, Beech decided to approach him – and it felt like a storybook moment. The rest, as they say, is history.

When they met in 2017, Beech and Pottle were both participants in VCU Globe, a living-learning program that launched in 2013 with a focus on world engagement. At the time, the program – it ended in 2022 before returning in 2025 with a new format – included a dorm residency requirement, with domestic and international students living together and sharing classes, volunteer opportunities and cultural engagement activities.

Pottle, who came to VCU for a year as part of an exchange program with the University of the West of England, called the program’s buddy system “a lot of fun.”

“It’s always a bit daunting when you go somewhere new, in that you don’t really know anyone,” he said. “But it’s nice being in a building full of people who also don’t know anyone.”

Beech – a Connecticut native who earned her bachelor’s degree from the School of World Studies in VCU’s College of Humanities and Sciences in 2018 – signed up for VCU Globe with the hope of making international students feel welcome.

“For me, [coming to VCU] was a sight-unseen type of choice, and so I thought, you know, I can only imagine how it is for an international person,” she said. “I was really big on us sharing that, like, ‘Hey, why’d you end up here?’”

From their very first introduction, Beech and Pottle found common ground, discovering shared friends and a love of music. Soon, they were inseparable — studying, cooking and exploring the Richmond community together. Beech even had the chance to introduce Pottle to the American prom experience at a VCU Globe end-of-year celebration.

“We were one of the only couples that took the dress code pretty seriously,” Beech recalled. “We both looked pretty dressed up. … I remember, he came to pick me up so that we could walk down together, and … I saw him in a crisp button-up white shirt and suspenders and a bow tie, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, he’s so cute.’”

Following his year at VCU, Pottle went back to England, where he graduated with his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and statistics in 2019. He is currently living in London as he pursues his Ph.D. in positioning, navigation and timing, while Beech, who earned her master’s degree from Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in 2022, teaches in Washington, D.C.

“It was an adjustment,” Beech said of the long-distance relationship they have navigated since their year together at VCU. “There are some days where it’s really hard because there are some things you just want to do with your partner. … The quiet moments are what I miss the most about being with him, and just having him with me. So it’s definitely hard, but you wouldn’t do it for someone who you didn’t think was worth it.”

And after almost a decade together, they are looking forward to the years ahead – all framed by a love-at-first-sight meeting at VCU.

“When we finally are properly with each other, I think it’ll just feel like coming home,” Beech said.