Wedding video / Kristin and Aidan

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I had always assumed I would get married in Latvia. But when I met Aidan in the US where I came to study, I realized I had never considered I could marry an American. Until now. When we decided to get married, I felt like that day was about sharing our love and life with the people close to me, and many of those people were in Latvia. So, even though we officially got sealed in the San Diego Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we knew we wanted to have a celebration in Latvia as well. Planning a wedding is a lot of work, and even trickier if you’re half a world away. We were lucky to have friends and family in Latvia to help out and help connect us to people who worked together to make the day happen.

On the day of the wedding, we were able to thoroughly enjoy it and leave the responsibility into other trustworthy hands. The whole day I couldn’t stop admiring how wonderfully it had all come together. The venue was so beautiful, the guests were all so kind and loving. The atmosphere was heart-warming. We wanted to enjoy the day, but we also wanted the guests to enjoy their time with us, and we hope they did.

Everyone we’d talk to was emanating love and acceptance. One of the main highlights of the night was the midnight ritual of bride’s passage to wife and groom’s passage to husband status. We invited a folk band to conduct that part of the night, and it was so much more meaningful that we would have anticipated. Aidan was most excited about the part where he got to hold the sword, but I think we both felt it was unifying us and our ancestors as we started our new family. We are so happy we got to celebrate this event which such great people and are so grateful for everyone who helped in any way to make this all come together.