Leilani & Nate
Wedding Party
Lina Osmundson
Maid of Honor
Lina is Leilani's identical twin sister, which means they've enjoyed over 23 years of fun together. Leilani's favorite adventures with Lina include eating way too much cheese in Switzerland, riding camels in Morocco, swimming with sea turtles in Samoa, touring the Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studios in London and hiking countless trails over Colorado and the rest of the United States. Lina has traveled to an absurd amount of countries (over 30!), has an adorable and gorgeous Akita named Raven, and works at a Denver nonprofit.
Paris Buedel
Best Man
Paris and Nate got to know one another when they decided to hike 500 miles to Durango, CO to save on gas money. Nowadays, Paris spends most of his time dragging Nate up local rock climbs, honing his culinary skills, and becoming a connoisseur of obscure internet humor so that he can be fun at parties. While the relationship between Paris and Leilani has typically been fraught with competition over Nate, the two are slowly beginning to see eye to eye and figure out ways to split Nate's time between them.
Portia Peter
Bridesmaid
Leilani met Portia in high school, where they played together on the varsity tennis team, suffered through AP World History (with Lina and Portia's now-fiancé, Terren), and danced the night away at senior prom after a Harry-Potter-themed promposal! Portia graduated college in only 2.5 years (what a queen) and now works in a law office. One of Leilani's favorite memories was setting up for Terren's proposal to Portia. Leilani and Lina hid in the bushes and secretly captured the special moment!
Aaron Pickens
Groomsman
Aaron came into Nate's life around the same time as puberty, but he stuck around for a lot longer. They met while playing frisbee in gym class in the 7th grade. A few weeks later, they knew it was lifelong love after eating an entire box of Cheezits together while working on a school project on Benjamin Franklin. Since then, Aaron and Nate have gotten much better at frisbee and even played on an ultimate team together, as well as surviving 4 years of high school marching band and sharing countless good times as college freshman roommates. To this day, Aaron can still wreck Nate in Rocket League (and pretty much anything else).
Elsa Roeber
Bridesmaid
Leilani and Nate both met Elsa through a college leadership program, and Elsa actually went through the same academic program as Nate, even being his partner for their senior capstone project! Elsa is queen of the outdoors - she climbs, bikes, backpacks, you name it. In fact, many of the wedding party not only regularly climbed at CU's climbing gym together, but taught Leilani how to climb! One of Leilani's favorite memories with Elsa was singing together at a karaoke bar in Panama. God bless the rains down in Africa.
Cosmo Gayo
Groomsman
Cosmo first met Nate in the 4th grade, when they attended a special school in the forest for burgeoning young hippies. Since then, Cosmo has gone even further down the dark path of Boulder-infused hipsterdom, and spent his senior year of college living in a van. He can routinely be observed eating plants, being in a relationship with a girl who studies plants, and engaging in other activities involving plants. Some of his influences rubbed off on Nate during a post-high school road trip to Canada, when the two of them collaborated on a hit ukulele song called "Ritz Crackers" that would go on to garner widespread acclaim.
Emma Scheetz
Bridesmaid
Leilani met Emma in college through the same leadership program she met Elsa - and she was another one of the wedding party that regularly climbed in CU's climbing gym. One of Leilani's favorite college memories was backpacking for eight days through Rocky Mountain National Park in two groups of five; Nate was in another group, and Emma was in Leilani's group! They all camped, cooked and enjoyed the outdoors together. Emma works for Americorps with her boyfriend, Adam, in Seattle.
Varun Narayanswamy
Groomsman
Varun and Nate first met in a photography class at CU, and bonded while listening to regular love life updates from another close friend and making (supportive) jokes the entire time (their friend Jen has since forgiven them, sort of). They would go on to attend a class called Medieval Icelandic Sagas together, which became the height of their college career. People generally have a hard time hanging out with the two of them together, due to their propensity to break out into spontaneous comedy bits instead of focusing on the matter at hand.
Michael Kowalsky
Bridesman
Michael decided to stay friends with Leilani despite meeting her in her extremely awkward middle school stage. Though they went to separate high schools and colleges (his in California), they stayed friends, even backpacking the South Island of New Zealand with Lina over the winter break of their freshman year! There, they hitchhiked with strangers, backpacked the famous Routeburn trail, and held Lina's hand as she grimaced through a rib tattoo. Michael knows everything there is to know about travel after exploring all over the world. He's not only a talented architect (that now works for a firm in New York), but a true fashion icon.
Nick Cordaro
Groomsman
Nate has known Nick since the dark ages of middle school, which tells you a lot about how much they've survived together. Their relationship really reached new heights when they accidentally joined the same rescue team during freshman year, and were forced to bike to practice through the freezing cold on early Sunday mornings, when any sane college kid was asleep. From there, the two bonded over their mutual love of delectable egg scrambles and rock climbing. While many on the rescue team still can't tell the two apart, the cold hard truth is that Nick is way smarter than Nate. He can purify proteins and develop machine learning models to optimize wet lab techniques in his sleep, whereas half the time Nate can't even remember what day it is. Still, Nate is lucky Nick keeps him around.
Jessie Sakamoto
Bridesmaid
Leilani met Jessie (Nate's sister) pretty soon after Leilani and Nate started dating, and even went to Jessie and Darren's wedding as Nate's date! Though Jessie and Darren live in a different state (Minnesota), they're all still able to spend time together through virtual Dungeons and Dragons, Among Us and Jackbox TV games. Jessie got Leilani into nail art and even though Leilani is not nearly as good as Jessie, she still loves it! A mechanical design engineer at Seagate, Jessie is much smarter and cooler than Leilani. She's a mom to two cats, some fish, and the cutest corgi alive.
Darren Sakamoto
Groomsman
Nate met Darren a long time ago when they were both summer camp counselors, but the real reason he's in Nate's life is because he decided to marry Jessie, Nate and Eli's sister. Darren knows a lot about how to save people's lives because of his job as an RN, and is a masterful chef - both of which make him a great person to be friends with. Other fun facts about Darren include: he has served as the inspiration for Nate marrying someone not white, and he once purchased ramen as a graduation gift for Nate, but it never got to him in his dorm. Nate's trust in him has never been the same.
Eli Bennett
Groomsman
Eli is the second coolest Bennett son and the first best mountain biker on this side of the Mississippi. He met Nate shortly after being birthed, and the two would go on to share years of acrobatic swordfights on the family trampoline, producing tens of action-packed Man-Vs-Wild-style home videos, and concocting elaborate schemes to discover where their Christmas presents were hidden. These days, Eli enjoys a healthy lifestyle of mountain biking, working at a mountain biking shop, and spending money on mountain bikes to keep him occupied. He's also quickly expanding his arsenal of photography equipment, and is sure to be fending off a plethora of employment offers from Nat Geo and RedBull soon.