of light & flight

The Bride & groom

Our story began as two very separate stories- one in Portland, Oregon and another in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. I had recently attended a job fair in Portland where I interviewed for a job in Phoenix, Arizona as a third grade teacher. Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, Cas had made the decision to go to flight school at Oxford Aviation Academy in England where he would first endure ground school studies before being able to fly any planes. I got the job. He passed his exams. A few weeks after my interview, I was packing up my things and road tripping down to Phoenix, Arizona. Around this same time, Cas was at Heathrow airport, headed to fly his first planes for three months- in Phoenix, Arizona.

We both dove into new experiences with new friends right off the bat. The Grand Canyon, Sedona, Las Vegas; the list of hikes, pool parties, and new memories went on. We went to all the same destinations, climbed all the same mountains, checked off all the same bucket list items, but never met. One day while floating the Salt River, some of my new friends met a group of Dutch pilots. Neither Cas or I were there. However, when it came time for Christmas and I decided to have a Christmas party, those friends suggested that they invite the Dutch pilots, who then of course, invited Cas to come along with them.

Dressed in my finest ugly Christmas sweater, decorated with Christmas bulbs, and wearing reindeer antlers, I stood behind the bar in my kitchen making what I believed to be delicious Peppermint beverages for my guests (later learning they were actually horrible). The Dutchies arrived, Cas standing in the doorway in his leather jacket and long hair- we were everything we both wouldn’t have expected to meet but everything that would make perfect sense that we would. That was apparent as soon as we started talking or giggling or whatever you would call what happened that evening. For having grown up in two different parts of the world, we had so much in common, including an uncanny positivity and excitement for life. In the hot tub later that evening, Cas made his big move by asking if I’d like him to come talk to my students about airplanes. It was the perfect “pick up line” because honestly, what teacher doesn’t love the idea of a handsome individual winning over the hearts of their beloved classroom (and of course, I loved the idea of seeing him again).

Three days later, I received a message. Too shy and nervous to ask me out by himself, Cas asked me on a double date with two of our friends. We went ice skating (typical Dutch). He held my hand, scooped me up when I slipped and slid around the ice rink, and just laughed when I managed to pull my friend down by her hair (still sorry, Sherie!). At the end of the night, he dropped me off pretty early for date standards and kiss-less. Slightly disappointed and assuming he wouldn’t be interested because of having to leave the country so soon (or because I nearly killed my friend), I poured myself a glass of wine and sank into the couch. A few moments later, my phone chimed. Cas had pulled into the McDonalds down the road to use the wifi on his European phone, wanting to hang out just a bit longer, too. All I text back was “turn around!” The rest, they say, was history.

The next few months were a whirlwind of something straight out of a rom-com and while I know saying that is embarrassing- I’m really not exaggerating. Sunset horseback riding, valentines day skydiving, sneaking out of the airport at night with the car, big surprises, calling in sick to work to escape on weekend getaways to Disneyland or hiking trips, gushy love letters, and tearful conversations preparing for an inevitable goodbye. He even planned a flight over my apartment where I sat waving on the balcony. There was always the thought in the back of our minds that maybe we should hold back but for some reason we just never did- we dove in head first, knowing we’d have to say goodbye at some point. When that day came, it all came down to a test. When Cas passed that test, he was put on a flight home just a few hours later. Costing him thousands of dollars, he called in sick to that test. We ran away to Sedona for one more weekend, staying in the only hotel room we could find. We still had to say goodbye a few days later.

We welcomed long distance with a positive attitude, involving each other as much as possible with videos, pictures, and constant skyping, often falling asleep together with Skype still running or partaking in random activities like carving pumpkins on Halloween. We shared lunch dates over Facetime from my classroom and the airport and posted hand-written love letters and packages, sealed with red wax and stamped with a heart. It wasn’t meant to be fun but in some sense, it was. We made the best of it for 18 months. He showed up to surprise me and I spent 6 weeks in Europe. We met up on every holiday. It was during the distance the travel started. From camping inside the Grand Canyon to exploring Paris, Rome, Venice, and more. We knew early on we’d see the world together, and when it came down to it, we were both willing to move to be together.

During the winter of 2013, Cas spent Christmas with our family in Oregon. We went to our family beach house in Manzanita for New Years Eve, where dad got us involved in setting our new years resolution, as usual. Except this year he had us write our resolution down on a strip of paper with no name, and put it in a bowl. I can’t remember what he was going to do with them in the long run but later in the evening he called me over to show me what Cas had written. “To be with Stephy soon.” That July, I moved to Amsterdam.

It needs to be recognized that there was a whole lot more at play here than two utterly smitten millennials. While making the decision to buy a ticket to surprise me, Cas’ dad told him “you’ll never miss the money, only the moments”, inspiring him to pull the trigger and give me one of the biggest surprises of my life. And when I was considering a move to Europe, the advice from my dad was “no matter what, life is just better when you’re with the one you love.” Our entire foundation would have been 100x less stable without the support, trust, example, and inspiration of our families. They were there every step of the way for us, knowing that the moment this came- weddings and babies- there would be a more permanent and complicated turn to our love story, being so far away from one of them. Yet, they still approached every turn with excitement for us. In this way, I like to think of our story as a love story involving more than just us.

As we embark on this new journey, both as husband and wife and as a mom and dad, we carry with us the aspiration to always remember to love each other with the same fearless passion that brought us together and to love our son and daughter so much as to trust them to follow their heart in the same way our parents allowed us to, no matter where in the world that might take them. Thanks for everything, moms and dads!