Samantha & Mike

Like all good millenials, we met online. We met in late 2019 in Washington D.C. and had a bit of a whirlwind romance (I met his parents on our fifth date.) We loved being silly together, trying new restaurants, going fruit picking, and traveling. And then COVID hit. We moved in together and spent every moment together for over a year. The pandemic gave our relationship a sort of trial by fire and we got engaged after being together for a little over a year. Then we embarked on our next grand adventure temporarily relocating to a teeny tiny town— Hamilton, MT—for my job. We drove across the country (still in the middle of the pandemic.) We chose to take advantage of the beautiful scenery in Montana and got married outside of Glacier National Park.

As scientists we were very conscious of the risks posed by getting married in the middle of a global pandemic. So we chose to keep the wedding very small and intimate, inviting only our immediate families. Because of the small size we were able to have a destination wedding near one of the most beautiful national parks in the country, Glacier National Park. To honor our family history, I wore several family heirlooms including my late grandmother’s antique watch and Mike’s late grandmother’s engagement ring. Since our pictures required us to do some trekking through the wilderness, I forewent the traditional heels opting for sparkly Keds instead which fit the overall whimsical theme of our wedding. Our wedding colors were a combination of our favorite colors, blue and green. There were several other details that made our wedding uniquely us, including personalized wine and beer glasses. The ceremony itself was short and sweet which gave us more time to celebrate with our loved ones. Our wedding cake, made by Miss Patti Cakes, was the absolute star of the night. We are still talking about it almost a year later! We ended the night by dancing under the stars. It was an absolutely perfect night.

Beware of fire season! We were very lucky that the smoke cleared out the day of our wedding but it would have been much less pleasant if the smoke had stuck around.

Get a wedding planner! It is worth every penny. I did not have a single ounce of stress planning our wedding. We did not have to worry about vetting caterers or coordinating day-of activities or hiring an officiant. We just showed up and had fun. I truly cannot recommend hiring a wedding planner enough.