New York Times Feature
Intro
When I first got the email from Lois Smith Brady introducing herself as a writer for the New York Times, asking if we had any cool adventure elopements coming up – I was naturally pretty skeptical. My first thought was ok, even if this is really you – how would having a reporter present change the dynamics of the day?
So many of our couples come to us because they’re running away from the performative nature of a traditional wedding. Can I really ask them to invite the entire readership of the New York Times into their exceptionally private and intentionally remote wedding day? After speaking with Lois on the phone, I came to understand that she’s a lifelong reporter on love and relationships and holds the utmost respect for preserving the integrity of the stories entrusted to her. Since we felt really aligned in that mission, we shot the idea over to one of our couples who had chosen to elope in Moab in late January. They really hit it off with Lois during their phone interview and seemed really stoked about the idea of participating. We really feel so protective over the experience our couples have during their elopement, but everyone agreed that this feature in the NYT was a great opportunity to tell their story in a new way and show couples all over the world that a wedding can be a private, beautiful experience.
How it came together
FAST! Hailey and Kris reached out to us only a few weeks before their intended date, asking us to join them in Moab at a spot none of us had ever visited before. Austin and I never turn down a chance to go to Moab, and we happened to have that whole week off, so we booked an incredible Airbnb, packed Cooper in the car and headed out West to get started scouting the perfect approach to their adventure elopement.
Moab
Moab is only about 6 hours west of us, just over the Colorado/Utah border, but it feels like another planet. The whole area is an ancient seabed that’s been beautifully transformed by wind, ice and water over millennia to form truly otherworldly rock formations that house so many diverse ecosystems. The Colorado River and many other systems have carved out the most incredible patterns in the earth — its like a secret grand canyon just a few hours north of the Grand Canyon.
There is so much to love about the area — the mind-bending sense of scale, the ample opportunities for rafting, climbing, off roading, and of course never ending exploration. But I think my favorite thing about this whole area is the reminder that the desert is so alive. I grew up seeing dusty old movies that mostly focused on the silence and desolate isolation of the desert. And that’s very much true in some areas, but the Colorado River valley is a surprisingly fertile landscape that supports a huge diversity of plant and animal life. You can see wild antelope from the highway and endless expanses of healthy sagebrush, supported by the living cryptobiotic soils that hold the desert together. The whole place is literally teeming with life on every scale.
The metaphor
What a place to say your wedding vows! I think it’s a beautiful setting that serves as a powerful metaphor. Life is propelled by forces big and small, ancient and emerging – and love is the way we make sense of it all. One of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Gilbert, says in her memoir on marriage, Committed:
“Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone.”
And I think that sentiment exactly reaches the heart of why we care so deeply about helping couples start their marriages out in beautiful landscapes. Our planet is such a beautiful, mysterious place. Solo exploration is wonderful in its own right, but how lucky are we who find someone else to share it with? In this whole wide world we get to find another person to walk alongside us and take it all in together, heightening every spectacular facet.