Monica & Kai

We met in August 2010 in law school when we were assigned to the same class section of approximately 30 people. Although Kai made some subtle moves early on— asking questions about “homework”—we spent our first year mostly becoming close friends, studying together, volunteering together, and playing intramural basketball. Back on campus for our second year of law school, we have our first official date (in Monica’s view). We continue to date throughout school and begin long distance in 2013, with Monica moving to LA and Kai back home to Montana. In 2017, we sensibly decided we should live in the same place!

Soon after, we became dog parents, adopting from the local shelter “Santo,” an outdoorsy, pint-sized terrierchihuahua mix (who served as our handsome ring-bearer)! With Santo’s help, Kai proposed to Monica on the shores of Lake Wenatchee, WA in the Cascade Mountain Range!

It was very important for us that 1) our wedding weekend reflect bits and pieces of us individually and as a couple; and 2) provide plenty of opportunities for our families and friends to spend time together and have fun! Lawn games go hand in hand with a great beach day or BBQ! We used the cornhole set graciously gifted to us by the venue. One of Monica’s friends brought an inflatable shark costume for a “land shark” outing at our joint bachelor/bachelorette party in Santa Barbara. The shark made a number of surprise appearances throughout our wedding weekend, including the dance floor. The DJ, not skipping a beat, immediately turned on “Baby Shark, do-do-do-do.”

Both of us enjoy being in the outdoors and knew when we got married that we wanted it to be in a nature-centric setting. When we first visited Mountainside Weddings in 2019, we knew this was the place for us. The pavilion is a perfect space to host a reception—ample room for dining, dance floor and lawn games, and the venue is nestled in the woods, so many opportunities for photo ops and enjoying the outdoors. They helped us customize the decor, layout, vendors and really made it easy for us to make this event truly “ours.”

We found a lot of our vendors through resources like My Montana Wedding, Instagram, and vendor referrals. Take time to browse these and other resources! We were so happy with everyone we worked with to make this weekend extra special and it was truly a weekend of festivities we will never forget.