Sarah + Josh

We met through mutual friends in college. I tend to be a little more reserved when I meet people for the first time. The second that I met Josh, it was like I came out of my shell and felt like I was myself. We both went to the University of Colorado at Boulder, but he graduated before I did and had moved to Los Angeles. After two years, he decided to come back to Colorado for culinary school.

We never had a traditional first date, but we both had a lot of free time. We would go up in the mountains a few days a week. He had previously dated a girlfriend of mine, and I was trying to be respectful. Before we even started dating, we were on a very long chair lift ride together. The chair lift stopped and we were stuck for about thirty minutes. We were sharing the most grotesque, horrid jokes — but they were side splitting to the two of us. I was laughing so hard, I almost fell off the lift. That was when I knew this was the person that I wanted to share my life with.

So for three months everything was platonic. Finally, I bought him tickets to a concert for his birthday. I was leaving for New York the following day and figured we would go to the show and then leave. I was planning on using the trip as some time apart to try to shake the ridiculous crush that I had on him. We spent the night dancing together and after a while we went outside to cool off. It started to snow and he kissed me. It was the most disgustingly romantic thing, but it was perfect.

We were in the back of a petty cab going home after being out with our friends at the bars when we first said "I love you". This was probably about two weeks after we officially started dating. I honestly never thought I wanted to get married but being with Josh made me reconsider. We went on a very lavish yacht trip to Greece with my family and the first night on the boat he proposed. I thought that he was joking at first because he couldn’t get the ring out of the bag. He asked me and I didn’t realize he was serious until I saw the ring. The whole thing would have been incredibly romantic — we were on top of a yacht as the sun was setting in the Greek Isles — but my Dad was too excited and popped his head up .0000765 seconds after Josh asked me. We docked in Santorini that night and the crew set off fireworks and we drank a lot of Ouzo.

We had our wedding in the arts district in downtown LA at a gorgeous place called Millwick. It has big living walls and so many plants you feel like you’re in the rainforest. The whole night felt like a huge blur of love.

Pics by Jenn Emerling