Carly is the funny one (says Martina) – a court reporter by day and a weekend adventure seeker with the punniest, quick wit. Martina is a creative – with a background in fine arts and starting a new career in city planning. We have an equal love of hiking and mountain air and cozying up for a night in with our cockapoo pup, Ziggy.
Somehow even the everyday errands in life, like going to the grocery store, are fun together. We’re not sure if it’s pandemic times or married life, but we are becoming more and more homebodies by the day!
We believe in the quote “you are who you surround yourself with.” And we are lucky to have such incredible people in our corner.
Tell us about the proposal.
We found an incredible local jeweler who runs ring-making workshops out of her home studio. We knew instantly that making each other’s wedding rings together would be a perfect fit for us.
While we were making our rings, we looked at each other and asked while laughing, “Does this mean we are engaged?!”
As you can tell, we are VERY traditional.
Talk us through the decision to elope.
We always talked about having a small wedding or elopement. We knew we wanted the day to be truly ours, simple, and worry-free. Of course, we missed our families and friends, but many of them would never have agreed to a sunrise hike on the earliest sunrise of the year anyway! So there was never a big decision or discussion about eloping or not. It just fell into place quite quickly.
Tell us about telling your loved ones that you’re now married.
We did tell our immediate family before running off to get hitched! So, there were no hard feelings there. I don’t think anyone was too surprised, though Martina’s dad threatened to rent a drone and helicopter to spy on us.
We didn’t tell any friends except the three that came with us, so breaking the news was an absolute blast.
Talk us through the elopement.
Welp, there wasn’t much to plan to be honest!
We both treated ourselves to new hiking gear in lieu of wedding dresses! We had our close friend get her commissioner’s license for the day. Which is quite easy to do where we live, so that was wonderful. One of our witnesses and best friends, Terolenn, is a professional wedding photographer, so that worked out beautifully!
On the actual day, we woke at around 1:00 am, first and foremost made coffee to have while we were getting ready. But also packed a massive canteen of coffee and Baileys (and whipped cream, of course!) for the mountaintop, which we all shared together after we said our I Dos. The mountain we chose to be married on was the first hike we did together when we moved to this area.
When we arrived at our destination, we started off at about 3:30 am with headlamps in the pitch dark. At that point, we had done this hike so many times before. But it somehow felt like both the longest and shortest hike up ever! We were buzzing with excitement. Finally, we reached the top at perfect timing. The sunrise was just beaming with so much pink, and everything was so still. We set down a blanket that has special meaning to us. With muddy boots, one of our best friends led us through an amazing, hilarious ceremony to say our I Dos. Ziggy was, of course, accompanying us as dog of honor, bandana and all.
We took photos, popped champagne, cheersed many times. Staying until all our hot coffee was out and our fingers started to become cold. Then, we headed down and were back into town before 9:00 am. Beforehand we had arranged for some of our close friends to meet us in the park for a “birthday” pancake brunch for one of the girls (our commissioner). We surprised them with our announcement, and it was so much friggin’ fun. The champagne continued, and we all filled up on pancakes and storytelling.
We had severely underestimated how exhausted we would be from our early morning and SO much excitement. So we had planned and packed for a wedding night of backcountry camping but decided before we were through the pancakes to book a last-minute jacuzzi suite in the mountains instead! We are so lucky to live so close to beautiful Banff. We still like to laugh about our sudden switch from the bushes to bougie we pulled on our wedding day.
Photography by Terolenn Photography
Wedding Rings Wear Process
