Rosanne Dunkelberger
Victoria Price and Kyle Langan met when they were (sort of) stranded on an (almost) deserted island.
A gang of about a dozen junior-level denizens of The Process had rented a pontoon boat for a weekend jaunt to Dog Island. The boat promptly broke down in the middle of Saint George Sound. The rental folks towed them to the primitive island and told them they’d return to pick them up about seven hours later.
“And as any group of friends stranded on an island with a cooler of beer, the good friends became even better friends,” Victoria says. “We had a great time.” Bonded by the shared ordeal, the group would pal around with each other throughout the Session.
Victoria and Kyle weren’t particularly paired up, but just before Sine Die, they did end up kissing at a friend’s apartment. Kyle left for home in St. Petersburg, and, as she describes it, “we both kissed, moved on, and lived our lives for nine months.”
The friend group reconnected for the next Session and Kyle finally made a move, asking her out for a one-on-one date. “I was like, look, I don’t want to be involved with someone in The Process. I don’t want a boyfriend. I really like where my life is going right now. He’s like, ‘I’m not asking for any of that. I’m not asking to marry you. I’m asking you to dinner, just dinner.’”
Victoria remembers their first date. Vividly. It happened five years ago on Feb. 8. He took her to the northern reaches of Leon County to Z Bardhi’s Italian restaurant. When they arrived, “it is full-on decked out for Valentine’s Day,” she relates. “I’m like, seriously? And he was like, ‘This wasn’t me. I was trying to take you to a nice dinner.’ We had a great time, and from there, we started dating.”
Victoria is the Government Relations Manager for Chesapeake Utilities Corporation, after working at UF and UF IFAS, where she started in The Process. Kyle is a Director at the Vogel Group. Before joining the government affairs firm, he spent two years as an analyst on the House Redistricting Committee. He also worked as a legislative aide and has years of experience in political campaigns.
In a bit of kismet, Kyle’s firm consults with Victoria’s company. “Now he’s working on our team, and my leadership loves him,” she says.
“It’s great because it’s nice to come home to somebody that understands what you do, and they can help you brainstorm what to do next,” she continues. “I feel very blessed to have a partner that knows what I do and can trust. It’s hard to work in this process without someone understanding it.”
It turns out that Kyle and Victoria are besties with one of the couples in last year’s Love in The Process compendium, Aly and Omar Raschid. Their relationships tracked each other and the couples were in each other’s weddings. Readers may recall Omar was pondering getting a dog to try and capture Aly’s attention. Kyle remembers that moment: “I was like, are you sure you want to get a dog? I know what you’re doing here, but it might be a bad idea.” All’s well that ends well, and the Raschids’ two pooches are now pals with the Langans’ 10-year-old Rhodesian Ridgeback.
Aly was a co-conspirator in Kyle’s surprise proposal to Victoria days before the 2021 New Year. Under the pretense of asking her friend to take headshots in Tallahassee’s downtown Chain of Parks, Aly was able to turn the camera on her friend and managed to grab a shot of Victoria unknowingly making a goofy face while Kyle was behind her on bended knee.
“I had no clue, no clue,” she says. Eventually, she turned around, said yes, and posed for more decorous photos, and the two couples adjourned to IlLusso restaurant to celebrate.
After looking for a house and losing out on offers, the couple decided last year to table homebuying and get a boat, where they now spend most of their weekends anchored to a sandbar near St. Marks. Oh, and two weeks after they bought the boat, they found a house.
If boating is their favorite form of recreation, golf comes a close second. But at one of the myriad weddings they attended, instead of a bridal brunch, the bride organized a pickleball tournament. It was the first time they had ever played, “and we got pretty far in the little tournament,” Victoria says. “We’ve been playing each other since then.”
