We had a small ceremony in Deep Creek, Maryland, where we rented a vacation home and gathered with our closest family and friends.  Our ceremony was short and sweet, and the highlight was this video we made telling our story so far.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc94SJDyrUM&feature=youtu.be

We ate cake.

And we posed for pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

Do you see the beautiful arch in background?  Daisy refused to have real flowers (being named after a flower made her avoid the real thing).  Instead, her mother organized the guests and together we made tissue flowers to decorate the arch we got married under.  It was lovely.

Our friend Derek got ordained online and officiated the ceremony.

Daisy’s best friend from childhood (And also her senior prom date!) played music for us all evening.

Once the fun was done, we somehow had to fit all the leftover food back in our subcompact car… along with us and Daisy’s parents.

It was a tight fit!

In all, the wedding was more successful than we had dared to hope.  We fed 20 people for four meals, we made our own wedding dinner, and put our own twist on time-honored traditions.  Daisy’s wedding dress?  A sport dress made in her hometown – we’ll dye it a different color and take it on tour with us.  Jason’s wedding outfit?  Thank goodness for Amazon prime!  Also, it turns out that ‘slim fit’ is not slim enough – we had to have his shirt and vest both taken in.  In the end, it was memorable and fun.  There was almost no drama, but probably because the house rule was to listen to bridezilla… er…  Daisy.

We’ll be taking our ‘honeymoon’ next week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, on our new touring bikes.  We’ll keep updating to let you know how the gear holds up and where we stay when all the campgrounds are closed for the season.

 

P.S. – For those of you who knew Hamlet, the service dog we trained this last year, you’ll be pleased to know that we are welcoming another trainee after the honeymoon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason and I have both been in college for over 10 years.  As you can guess, this is enough to make anyone a little nutty.  The assumed next step for both of us is to move immediately into long-term careers and settle down, but during the last 10+ years we’ve had too much time to dream of what we would rather be doing.  We have both dreamed of escaping the ivory tower, of finding adventure, and of being self-sufficient, independent and free of 9 to 5 obligations.

My academic advisers thought I was crazy… at first.  Now, they are among the most vocal of our supporters.  One of Jason’s supervisors had a similar dream before starting his career: to travel Europe for a year with his wife.  He didn’t do it though, the lure of a job too tempting, and he’s regretted it ever since.  We refuse to live with that regret – we are going to take our dream tour!

The truth is, if not now, when?  The other truth is, anytime.   Too often, we make decisions based on what we’re supposed to do and what career path we’re supposed to take, always saving dreams for “later”.  In the past year we’ve decided not to wait, and to trust that somehow things will work out when we return.  We’ve been saving money for the past year, and even on graduate student salaries we have enough to fund the tour and to survive for a few months after the tour concludes.

Our goal is to craft a worthy story, and hiding out in an ivory tower has narrow appeal. We’re taking to the streets!  Hopefully, we’ll inspire at least a few people to try something new they never considered before. At the very least, we’ll have an interesting bullet point on our resumes when we get back.