Nicole, Program Director for a Healthcare NonProfit & Mike, Transportation Planner
One sentence sum-up of the wedding vibe: Jersey accents converge on an antique barn in rural Colorado; laughter and amazing dance moves ensue.
Soundtrack for reading: “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker
Other Cool Stuff We Should Know About
Mike and I met at The College of New Jersey during my freshman year in 2004. While we loved our time together in college, we were always dreaming of far-off destinations. As a result, after I graduated, we took jobs in Chile, where we spent five months living in a small mining town in the Atacama Desert and another year and a half living in Santiago, the nation’s capital. After our stint in South America, we spent a year working in the Dominican Republic, which was a truly incredible experience. We then moved to Denver, where we are still enjoying a wonderful life together (but also eyeballing the next places we’d like to live). Our relationship has been forged over learning new languages, weathering intestinal maladies, evading poisonous centipedes, hanging on to each other during the fifth-largest earthquake in history, and making some of the best friends we could possibly imagine. It’s been nothing short of an amazing adventure, and after Mike proposed in February 2013, we wanted our wedding to capture how important travel has been to us.
When Mike and I decided to get married in Colorado, I immediately envisioned a venue that would showcase everything we loved about the West. I couldn’t imagine living in such a beautiful state, only to get married in windowless hotel ballroom somewhere. We were so lucky to find rugged western beauty and plenty of windows at the Barn at Evergreen Memorial Park. The “Barn Chapel” is actually a historic assembly of five old barns ranging from seventy to one hundred years old and has amazing stained glass windows, which the owner rescued from a church that was being razed in Germany. Better yet, the property around it features a sparkling reservoir and an animal preserve where buffalo and elk actually roam.
One of my absolute favorite parts about our wedding day was getting to wear red cowboy boots. During my time in Bangkok I fell in love with a song by Bernice Lewis called “Red Cowboy Boots” that is all about a woman getting married and waltzing down the aisle with “White Lace over those Red Cowboy Boots.” At this point in my life, marriage still wasn’t much on my radar, but I loved that image. When I got home to New Jersey, I declared I wanted a pair of red cowboy boots. Turns out no one in New Jersey wears Western boots, and while my Mike and my mom tried to get me several pairs, nothing ever fit what I really wanted. I became like the Goldilocks of boots—everything was either too tight, or too loose, or the heels were too high. I had given up on my quest for red cowboy boots until, approximately twenty minutes after Mike proposed in the gorgeous town of Steamboat Springs, we wandered into the FM Light Western Wear Store in order to kill some time before brunch. There, in the center of the store, was the perfect pair of boots. I cried when I put them on, and indeed, spent my wedding day waltzing around with white lace over red cowboy boots.
A highlight of the ceremony was a unique string-tying event that my mom had dreamed up. A spool of twine was passed between each person in the crowd, eventually reaching us at the front. Mike and I got to officially tie the knot with all of our closest friends and family hanging onto the same thread.
We exchanged the vows we had written for each other and practically floated back down the aisle grinning ear to ear.
Favorite Thing About the wedding
Being surrounded by friends and family from around the world and getting to see all of their talents come together in such a beautiful, fun, and touching way was spectacular. Friends and family did everything from officiating the ceremony, to making our runner, to baking our wedding cake, to styling my hair, and even performing a song. It was amazing and we are so thankful!
