In her senior-year video arts elective, Helen Joy Balut ’11 received an assignment titled “Motion and Light.” The prompt was straightforward: capture movement and light on camera. Helen had the idea to film an athlete running drills and overlay the footage with a dancer’s choreography.
After enlisting a dancer friend, she asked around to find an athlete on campus whose fluidity could bring her concept to life. Several friends suggested the same person: Yaw Gyawu ’12, a third-year forward on the basketball team. He was friendly but a little shy, they told her — and surprisingly graceful on the court. Helen and Yaw agreed to meet after one of his games to talk through the project. Before the camera rolled, the conversation flowed and, to Yaw’s surprise, quickly deepened.
“As someone who is more reserved, I remember how comfortable I felt with her,” Yaw says. “I remember opening up, talking about myself, and learning about her.”
Helen’s film project was not only a success, but it also marked the start of a relationship that would stretch far beyond their time on the Hill.
Their first dates were less romantic than they were practical. Swamped in schoolwork, Helen, a double major in peace and conflict studies and political science, told Yaw that if he wanted to see her, he had to study with her. He agreed, and soon a routine developed.
“We’d spend hours at the library together, then drive to the Coop late at night to get chicken tenders,” Helen recalls. By April of that spring semester, they were officially a couple.
After graduation, Helen moved back home to Newark, N.J., and started a job as a paralegal for a personal injury firm. Yaw, still in Hamilton for his last year at Colgate, made the effort — frequent calls, visits, and, eventually, a decision to look for jobs in the New York area rather than his hometown of Lilburn, Ga.
“That meant a lot to me,” recalls Helen. In the years that followed, Yaw built a career in finance and Helen enrolled in Seton Hall University’s law school, attending night classes while continuing to work full-time.
“Yaw was always so supportive and caring,” she says, recalling the weekends he accompanied her to the law library, echoing the earliest days of their relationship.
While they spent the years after Colgate attending friends’ weddings, the couple never felt rushed themselves. “We weren’t in any hurry to get married,” says Helen. “We’ve always done what feels right for us.”
But by early 2022, Yaw had begun making plans. Unbeknownst to Helen, he had arranged a New York staycation at a luxury hotel, complete with family flying in to celebrate. Days before the trip, however, Helen came down with food poisoning — and a disappointed Yaw called off the visitors while still managing to keep his plan a secret.
A month later, the surprise was back on. While Helen’s best friend helped stall at a longer-than-usual brunch, Yaw transformed their hotel room with candles, flowers, and the Bridgerton soundtrack. When they returned, he was waiting. Surrounded by loved ones, Helen said yes.
When it came time to consider a wedding venue, Helen and Yaw thought about their 2021 visit to Barcelona, where the couple fell for the city’s lights, architecture, food, and slower pace. They made plans for a fall 2025 wedding in Spain and selected a historic castle near Girona where guests could stay together on site.
Even though the guest list was relatively small at 60, “it was important to us to bring our friends and family from different parts of our lives together,” Helen says.
For Yaw their wedding day brought into focus “all the phases of our journey,” he says — especially their first months as a couple in Hamilton.
“As Helen walked down the aisle with her parents, I had these flashbacks,” he says. “Walking through the quad together, eating at Main Moon, studying in the library.”
A fitting cinematic nod to the film assignment that brought them together.