Nine years ago, Megan had just moved to Bellingham for school and was looking for ways to make new friends. She found a Bellingham group on Reddit, and saw that a meet-up was planned. Meanwhile, Bryson’s good friend Bryon also saw that a Reddit meet-up was happening, and convinced Bryson to come along with the motivation that “there might be girls there!” When Megan walked into Rudy’s Pizza for the meet-up and saw how many people were there, she was anxious and had to fight the urge to turn around and walk out. Instead, she ordered a beer and took the nearest open seat — which happened to be next to Bryon, across from Bryson. Megan, Bryon, and Bryson spent most of that meet-up talking to each other. When Rudy’s was getting ready to close for the evening, they decided they weren’t ready for the night to end and walked a couple blocks to The Copper Hog for snacks and more drinks. When it was finally time to go home, phone numbers were exchanged and Megan had her first Bellingham friends.

Over the last few years, the topic of marriage has come up from time to time. Bryson knew marrying Megan was something he wanted eventually. Megan was sure she wanted to spend her life with Bryson, but wasn't sure getting married was something she ever wanted to do. Then, this May, Megan came to the realization that she actually did want to get married. She decided that, instead of telling him she was ready for him to propose, she should be the one to do the asking. A few short weeks later, she had a plan in place. Megan chose a newly-opened restaurant for dinner — a restaurant which had moved into the space Rudy’s Pizza used to be. After dinner, Megan told Bryson they were meeting friends at a brewery — which was across the street from where The Copper Hog used to be. She told him she wanted to see if anything was in that building (she knew there wasn’t, having scoped it out in advance) and led him to the spot where they had their first kiss. Megan revealed to Bryson that the restaurant where they had dinner and the spot they stood in that moment were not chosen at random -- they had re-traced the footsteps of the night they met. She told him how happy she is with him and their relationship and that she wants to keep doing this thing for the rest of their lives. Then she got down on one knee, pulled a box out of her purse, and presented him with a watch. When Megan asked “will you marry me?” Bryson could not have been more surprised, but he quickly and enthusiastically said “yeah!”

The venue: Salish Lodge at Snoqualmie Falls. We had a gorgeous view of the river valley from the ceremony/reception room. The officiant: we asked our very dear friend Randy Beck to officiate for us, and he couldn't have done a better job! He was flexible and supportive throughout the planning and writing process, and did a beautiful job at the ceremony. The vows: we wrote our own vows and had a private exchange in our room the morning of the wedding. As two pretty introverted people, we loved having a moment that was just for us. The ceremony: we pieced together a ceremony from examples we found online. We didn't follow a lot of "traditional" guidelines, but we were able to create something that felt very personalized and meaningful for us. Our favorite part of the ceremony was the readings. Instead of having someone stand at the front of the room with us and read a long-ish passage, we found 20 Disney movie quotes about love, family, and friendship. We printed the quotes on cards which were available for guests to pick up on their way in if they wanted to be part of the ceremony. Randy invited people to read from their cards at pre-determined moments in the ceremony. This allowed us to slow down the ceremony for ourselves and ground ourselves in the experience. We could look out at our guests, see their faces, and watch their reactions to what was going on around them. It was so beautiful and special for us to be able to involve each guest in this way -- and we're pretty sure they enjoyed themselves doing it!