¡Vamos a casarnos!

Our love story has been a story full of travel and adventure. We met at Zion National Park where we worked together in 2019. Once we left our jobs and moved back home (Melanie to California, Victor to Ecuador), we found each other on social media and started talking. During the pandemic Melanie and her friend decided to embark on a two month journey through Peru and Ecuador. Victor, in a spur of the moment decision, joined us. We surfed giant sand dunes, white water rafted, climbed Machu Picchu, flew over the Nazca lines, swam in thermal pools, zip lined, and more. We ate alpaca, guinea pig, cow heart and managed to never get ill. We spent many of our nights on uncomfortable buses talking before succumbing to sleep. By the time Melanie had to leave Victor in Ecuador, we both knew we couldn’t say goodbye for good. During our long distance relationship we have also explored the Mexican Yucatán peninsula and the Galápagos Islands. We have snorkeled with whale sharks and reef sharks, paid off Mexican police to get out of a ticket, visited our second wonder of the world, floated in Mayan canals, and survived water-born viruses. We have traveled back and forth between the US and Ecuador to visit each other in the past two years. On one trip in 2022 Victor was trapped in Miami for two days due to a huge hurricane. Then, later that year, Melanie was deported from Ecuador for spending too much time in the country and was banned from coming back for a year. It hasn’t been easy, yet we have stayed positive and persevered. We are so excited to finally stop saying goodbye. And, humanity should be excited to not have to see Melanie (and sometimes Victor) publicly sob at airports anymore. This wedding will mean we have reached the finish line, and our future goodbyes will be for a few hours instead of a few months. We plan to continue traveling and adventuring together often, as that is how we fell in love and what we both love to do. And, now we will finally be able to go home together.