Nardole was a companion/crew member of River Song, in her TARDIS, last year. He had about five minutes of total time onscreen, in that episode (Which is how he knew to pilot the TARDIS (albeit with trial-and-error).

Rory was an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances -- in his case, the circumstance was "Married to the *special* one."

I did appreciate the way Amy and Rory left, though: choosing to be together, whenever that happened to be, and just living out an ordinary life.