I know what you’re thinking. Another wedding?! Don’t people elope anymore?? Well, we were thinking the same thing! We’re eloping to Thailand, and no, it’s not a secret. Our dream wedding is just the two of us on a foreign beach followed by a romantic dinner of street noodles and cheap beer. Don’t get us wrong! We love sharing big life events with our friends and family. To that end, we plan to have a big party when we get back. Because let’s face it, with our (beautiful, crazy, hilarious, wonderful) friends and family, we’re not getting off the hook without plenty of shared good cheer and at least a little public embarrassment!

We know that plenty of our friends are paying off student loans, working on a down payment, or might be saving for their own wedding/honeymoon. Maybe a wedding gift for another couple isn’t in the cards. And no hard feelings! If the only thing in the budget is a “congratulations” or “good luck”, we’d love to hear from you! Low maintenance and don’t put anyone out--that's our mantra. So if you want to send a gift, a nice note or a text, or if your style is a simple like on our Facebook post, we’ll know you’re wishing us the best in this next step in our lives.

We’re ballin’ on a budget and combining our wedding and honeymoon so, if you’re interested, here is our plan…

We’ll be flying into Taipei, Taiwan to visit friends and experience the vibrant nightlife and delicious street fare. After a couple of days, we are off to Thailand for a food tour a la Anthony Bourdain. Once we get there, we’ll go where the wind takes us, seeking out the spicy, the strange, and the beautiful. We hope to perform the wedding ceremony ourselves, on an undisclosed day, so we can savor the union being between just us two. When we’re ready, we’ll share the news with all of you. Before we come back state side, we’ll make a one day stop back in Taipei to get some hot pot for Ashlee’s birthday!

We hadn’t planned on asking for anything, but after hearing from more than a few loved ones that they wanted to give us gifts, we decided to set up a platform for anyone so inclined to do so. We might be going on this adventure alone, but any contribution you might want to make will make it feel like you’re with us, even though we aren’t doing a traditional wedding. We have enough stuff! The last thing we need is another blender. And between us, we have more knife sets than anyone one couple needs. What we really want is to start our lives together with an incredible adventure….hopefully just the first of many. So thank you in advance for helping us make this dream a reality!

If you still haven’t had enough of the mushy love stuff, here is the story of us (the short version!)…

We met just before we started High School. Mason was a NoBo kid, and Ashlee hailed from South Boulder. A mutual friend introduced us—a girl that bridged that great geographic divide between the two sides of town. But don’t think that we would never have met if it hadn’t been for that fateful day! Our paths have crossed countless times over the years, and we’ve always been friends. We were never official as a couple. One of us was always dating someone when the other was single. To be honest, we wouldn’t have it any other way. We were partners in crime at 17, and again at 22. Skipping the salacious and sometimes criminal details, suffice it to say we created our own history and built an unshakable foundation of love, trust and mutual respect.

We both found our way in the world and grew into the people we are now, independent of each other. Mason became an amazing, and very accomplished chef. I went to grad school and completed my Masters Degree, traveled the world, pursued every whim. This leaves no unanswered questions for me—I know that he’s the one I want to spend my life with.

The first time Mason told me he was going to marry me, we were 15, up to teenage hi-jinx on Pearl Street. Sixteen years later on September 4th, he finally made good on that! As has become a bit of a Summer tradition for us, we went up to Gold Hill for a hillbilly hootenanny. Just him and me, cruising around the hills, laughing and listening to Bluegrass. Up on the rocky outcrop, overlooking the canyon, Mason dropped down to one knee and asked me to be his wife. Now, I’m the luckiest woman in the world, because in a few weeks, I’m going to marry my best friend and my favorite person.