Love woods in the

Victor is truly my perfect complement because he’s very grounded — very practical and caring, whereas I’m totally a head-in-the-clouds-dreamer sort of person. I lift him up and he keeps my feet on the ground. Even our “how we met” story rings true to our personalities.

I had just quit my engineering job and moved up to Birchwood Wilderness Camp, which my family had owned since 1968, to figure out my next move in life. Summer camp was in session, and I was just about to go to bed one night, when I noticed a giant wolf spider on the wall of my cabin. Now, I’m not the sort of person to kill a spider, but I also was a little nervous about ushering the furry creature outside.

What’s a girl to do? I marched down to the staff lounge to see if anyone would help me. And what do you know, Victor Pilon jumped to his feet and came back to my cabin with that grounded and confident energy I love so much! He grabbed a stick and asked if I had a book or piece of paper he could use. I said, “What the heck are you gonna do with a stick and paper? Don’t you need a jar?”

He taught me that wolf spiders freeze up if you can tip them on their back. He used the stick to flip the spider on the paper and, wouldn’t you know it, that spider was frozen on his back! No chance of an escape into my laundry basket. All Victor had to do was escort him outside and set him on his feet.

With a smile, I thanked him for his bravery and educational spider lesson as he tripped down my stairs, then walked back up them to apologize for falling down my stairs. What a cutie. We fell head over heels for each other that fall in the Boundary Waters.

Now, three years later, we’re married and we own Birchwood Wilderness Camp with my father, Dan. Victor and I live there year-round in our tiny cabin. He still removes the wolf spiders for me.

From very early on in our relationship, Victor and I had planned on running off to the woods to get married, just us two and the necessary people to perform the ceremony. Place is very important to me and I couldn’t imagine any place where I’d want to have a ceremony, beyond an elopement situation. That’s how I felt up until we built the yoga deck here at Birchwood. We knew from the moment we started building that it would be a very special place, and shortly after we finished construction it snapped into focus — this was THE place! And so we started making plans for a very small ceremony in our favorite boreal forest where we met, on the structure we had built together, beside the river we both knew was home. And that’s how the rest of the wedding planning went — we just allowed it to fall into place in its own time. No force, just finesse.

The dress I ordered, never having tried it on or seeing it in person, but knowing that it was the one. The menu was a creation by my beautiful and talented friend Jaclyn on a hike with our dogs. The decor was lovingly gathered in thrift shops by my mother-in-law, Pam. Our beautiful photographer, Emily Theisen, had elected herself as soon as Victor and I got engaged. Invitations were crafted in the form of one-on-one conversations. Both my wedding band and Victor’s were made using the gold and diamonds from the bands my father gave my mother many years ago. She passed away in 2013 and was deeply missed on this particular day that we used to dream about together when I was a girl. This was my way to honor her not just on that day but every day after. And then when the day came, our favorite people gathered in the remote wilderness to help us prepare the space with the most loving intentions, support us as we exchanged vows, and celebrate with us into the night and through brunch the next morning.

Our officiant, Sebastian (we know him by his camp nickname, Nemo), is a really special friend who has known us since the beginning. Sebastian has been traveling from Colombia to be a counselor at Birchwood for many summers. He has known us individually and together, but most importantly he shares our love for Birchwood, making him perfect for the job. He even threw our camp nicknames, Stryde and Penny, into his speech once or twice. Now that Nemo is ordained, he insists we change his nickname to “Padre Nemo.”

something old, something new something borrowed, something

Blue

Personally, one of the most special details of the day was one that wasn’t on my radar at all. It was the 10 minutes right before the ceremony as my girlfriends helped me button up my dress and clasp my bracelet. They asked me if I had something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. As if rehearsed, I pulled the old white handkerchief dotted with blue embroidery out of the pocket in my gown — something old and something blue, check and check! The bracelet that Elle had just clasped around my wrist was my something new, check … oh no, I had forgotten something borrowed. As if on cue, Heather handed me her necklace. I held it in my hand, running my finger over the letters spelling out her daughter’s name, Piper, in bold letters. She said to put it in my other pocket and use it as my something borrowed. I’m sure she doesn’t realize how sentimental I found that to be, but it felt like 15 years of friendship had wrapped itself in one moment, supporting me on a very big day.

Vows The

I take you as you are, loving who you are.

I promise from this day forward to be grateful for our love and our life;

To be generous with my time, my energy and my affection;

To be patient with you and with myself;

To fill our life with adventure and our home with laughter;

To inspire you to grow as an individual;

To love you completely.

These things I pledge to you.

Memories The

The memory I’ll hold onto forever is a feeling as much as it is a visual memory. It’s the feeling of being surrounded by people I love, both those there in person and those in spirit, in the place I love most, hand in hand with Victor as he vowed to always bring adventure into our lives and laughter into our home. I have never been so overwhelmed and humbled by the quality of love engulfing our lives together.

Honeymoon The

Victor and I went on a two-week Italian honeymoon with a little time spent in Paris as well. We visited Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, Portofino, Genoa and Milan. Of all the places we visited, it comes as no surprise that we most loved the rugged little villages of Cinque Terre. These quiet seaside towns swept us off our feet with their pistachio gelato, renowned white wine, delicious seafood pasta and breathtaking views of the Ligurian Sea. We spent our evenings slow-dancing in the moonlight on our seaside balcony, mornings sipping cappuccinos in the town square, and days soaking in the sun and sea. ♡