Welcome back! We're more excited than ever to be so close to our (new) wedding date. We are planning to fill every last one of the 93 spaced-out reception seats we can have for guests. We're reaching out personally with re-invitations to our closest starting this week, and appreciate you taking the time to RSVP (again)! From the bottom of our hearts, for those we are not able to re-invite to our reception, know this: We will miss you, and wish we could have you join us as we all hoped and planned. Please know that we would LOVE to have you visit any time, all summer long in Washington, this winter in California (where we'll be moving after the wedding!) - all life long for that matter. And we are planning to hold all ceremonies outside, so if you truly want to travel out for them, you are most certainly invited.

Looking back at the words in the sections below written one, two years ago is a bit like looking at a time capsule... Welcome back to our journey! We're currently cruising at 36,000 feet on our flight from May 9, 2020 to July 17, 2021. In many ways we've been on autopilot - a church, hall, caterer, florist, music, and more have been booked for over a year now. Yet as each day goes by, we're less "auto" and more "pilot" because we know the final descent to Eastsound, Orcas Island is about to take us all through some uncharted territory! When we postponed our wedding to mid-summer 2021, we had hopes and dare we say "expectations" of simply transplanting all of our original plans to a new date. While we still hope to share this celebration with all of our closest friends and family, we also admit we aren't really sure what's to come. Currently in Washington, wedding ceremonies may have only 30 guests, and receptions are not permitted. We hold fast to our intention to marry each other in July. We are moving forward together with planning for an intimate ceremony this summer. We hope to invite guests and add events to the celebration as time goes on - we know plenty of aspects are bound to change! Sending love from Washington and overseas, and always thankful for your support. Laura and Aman

When we got engaged, we imagined getting married before Aman's next deployment. We've spent the past 7 months making countless phone calls with family, budgeting for the big day, and celebrating the small wins: choosing kurtas, hiring a caterer, our 4-year first date-iversary. In recent weeks, we've spent time counting something we never imagined when we got engaged: Italy's death toll, COVID-19 patients in Bellingham, and how many vendors can move with us to a new wedding date. Here's the bottom line: In our first four years together, we drove 3,575 miles to see each other. We took 22 flights to see each other. We lived in 17 placed combined. We spent only 10 months together in Washington. We became resilient, used to separation, used to missed birthdays, holidays, postponed vacations, frequent changes. Remember when Hurricane Harvey rained out Aman's winging? We do too. We learned to make the very most of time together, to celebrate it. To accept the things we couldn't change, to find the best in everything. We are postponing our wedding. Our excitement to share this celebration with you, our nearest and dearest, brings us to tears. We will hold that excitement in our hearts, 1 year, 2 months, and 8 days longer than expected. Good things come to those who wait.

Our discovery of each other at Sky Warrior in Pensacola, Florida is the definition of serendipity. Laura's longtime friend from Marquette, Brittany, deserves 1,200 miles of credit in this story, for bringing Laura out for a visit. Laura gets credit, too - she slept through all alarms, missed her planned flight, and wound up arriving a day and a half late via Greyhound from Alabama. This pushed back plans to backseat a Cessna training flight... which meant when Brittany debriefed with her instructor, Aman was waiting to start his lesson with him - and Laura was waiting right there too.

Three and a half years later, while Aman was away in Florida, he used the separation to make his own plans for an upcoming Thiel family outing. However, unbeknownst to Laura, she was helping in the plans! They both organized a surprise sea-kayaking adventure with the family. A lot of people secretly helped it all come together without themselves knowing. With the ring in a dry-bag Michael had provided, the group kayaked to a great spot for cliff-jumping into Lake Superior. After a couple jumps and a still-heart-pounding family photo, Aman got on one knee.