Michelle and Hayley met in Indonesia in 2018 while volunteering after the Lombok earthquakes. Romance, as it turns out, can blossom in the least glamorous circumstances: covered in dust, hauling rubble, and sweating through manual labour in tropical heat. On their first day, they helped build a temporary school for local children — mixing concrete, painting walls, and eventually dancing on top of a giant pile of dirt to compact it because apparently that counts as construction work if someone brings a speaker. Michelle immediately fell for Hayley’s ability to make her laugh. Hayley immediately noticed Michelle in a bathing suit. Truly, a relationship built on strong foundations. At the time, everyone was sleeping in tents on the lawn of a damaged resort hotel. For their first night together, they splurged on one of the cracked hotel rooms so they could enjoy two luxuries: privacy and hot running water. The room had a massive crack running through the wall, but they decided to risk it and hope there wouldn’t be another earthquake overnight. When the volunteer program shut down due to health and safety concerns, they stayed behind and worked with local translators to support the community however they could, including pooling resources to provide bedding for elderly residents who had lost their homes. Somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, they realized this might actually be something special. The only slight complication was that Michelle was living in the Dominican Republic and preparing to move to Puerto Rico, while Hayley was based in London. Naturally, they decided the most sensible thing to do was start a long-distance relationship. And somehow… it worked. Over the last seven years, they’ve lived and worked all over the world, visiting each other whenever possible and collecting adventures (and airport miles) along the way. Long distance wasn’t always easy, but they kept choosing each other over and over again. When COVID hit, Michelle was evacuated from Niger to London, and the two went from long distance to suddenly sharing a tiny flat 24/7. Strangely, it was wonderful. At one point they built a blanket fort in the living room, moved their mattress into it, and lived there for months simply because it made them happy. Over the years, they became each other’s family. They discovered they have an alarming amount in common: they are both giant nerds, love crosswords, and can lose entire weekends to jigsaw puzzles. Michelle approaches puzzles like a project manager with a categorization system. Hayley approaches them like a raccoon digging through a bin looking for treasure. Somehow, this works perfectly. Naturally, the proposal also involved a puzzle. Michelle had a custom all-white puzzle made with one hidden piece that said “Will you marry me?” After Hayley finished assembling the puzzle and realized one piece was missing, she announced, “The puzzle is broken!” Michelle returned with the final piece, knelt down, and held it out to her. Hayley grabbed it immediately because she was excited to finish the puzzle, then finally realized what it said. After a moment of emotional system overload… she said yes. Now, after years of adventures, distance, growth, and building a life together across continents, they are incredibly excited to celebrate with the people they love most. One thing that matters deeply to them is the spirit behind this wedding. They know how fortunate they are to have the safety, freedom, health, and stability to gather everyone together like this — something not everyone gets to experience. So rather than traditional gifts, they’re asking guests to create “ripples of kindness”: a charitable act, a donation, or simply a meaningful effort to help someone in their own community. For Michelle and Hayley, this wedding is about more than just the two of them. It’s about love, inclusion, humanity, and remembering that even small acts of kindness can ripple outward in ways we may never fully see.