On a good old-fashioned blind date. Our mutual friend (who’s actually our Officiant) set us up. He worked with Tyler at the time, and was the then-boyfriend, now-husband of Vanessa’s Matron of Honor. Our first date was at a cocktail bar in Alphabet City, where we stuck around for a few rounds of Moscow Mules (V) and Old Fashioneds (T) before heading to a dive bar down the road.

We had a trip planned to Vancouver and as we were planning some hikes and day trips in British Columbia, Vanessa found a picture of a lake with a glacier in the background causing the water to be a bright turquoise color and a fallen tree in the middle of the lake. There was no information or location of the picture, but she said “if this is a real place, we have to find it and go while we are there.” Tyler took that and ran with it – eventually locating the exact spot about 3 hours north of Vancouver, Joffre Lakes Provincial Park. There were a series of 3 lakes on the hike and this was lake #2. Tyler had photographers hiding up at lake #2 to capture the moment. We ventured out on that log where Tyler proposed kneeling over the glacier water. The very next person to go out on the log fell in – we’re still not sure why Tyler thought it was a good idea to hand Vanessa the ring over the lake but somehow all went according to plan! We spent the night off the grid in a cabin in the woods with no wifi or cell service, before returning to Vancouver for a few days. The trip was capped off by a sunset train ride down the Washington coast to Seattle, where we met up with Vanessa’s family.

It’s a toss-up between finding our band and tasting our food and drinks. We loved dancing to (most of) the music together, and stumbling on our wedding band at 1:40am 🙂 We also were lucky enough to share our food and wine & beer tastings with our parents, which was very special.

Don’t get wrapped up in the checklist nature of planning. Step away from wedding stuff regularly to do the things you both love to do, and when you are in planning mode, be sure you’re putting love into the process as opposed to simply ticking boxes.

Having all our friends and family together in one place.