We love you!!! And also (in case you didn't already know) we are aggressively introverted. Big parties rapidly suck the life out of our social batteries even when we are just holding up the walls, and being in the spotlight where we can't escape is guaranteed to drain any reserves long before Michelle cuts a fancy cake with a ceremonial Scottish sword (it was an option discussed). (Did you know that batteries are measured in milliampere-hours (mAh) to indicate how much electrical charge a cell is able to give off before it dies? For a sense of relative scale, a typical AAA battery has a capacity of about 2500 mAh. A smartphone battery might have a capacity of 2500 to 6000 mAh. On a good day, Iain and Michelle MAYBE have, like, 4 mAh of social battery capacity. Combined.) We decided rather than resorting to progressively strained smiles and collapsing from people-exhaustion on our wedding day, we would make gooey eyes at each other. (Or, you know, talk about how Faraday cages work and explore what causes schistosity in metamorphic rocks and debate whether Napoleon was the most brilliant battlefield strategist. Because this is our natural habitat when not required to be around lots of people.) However, if you would like to propose a smaller gathering to get to know each other better sometime in the future, you can let us know at this link (part 2): https://forms.gle/bq2Gf8oi9qVWTMuY7

What?! No Registry? No Wedding Presents? Nah. We already have two long-established households' worth of stuff vying for primacy of place. Any newcomer stuff would cause the existing Iain-stuff and Michelle-stuff to form temporary alliances shouting for the eviction or annihilation of interloper-stuff. Michelle doesn't have time to wrangle the courts for eviction notices, nor sufficient skill with a sword to engage in wholesale annihilation, and even if she did, she would probably cry over the unintentional rejection of tangible symbols of love from family and friends. (She would also cry over the addition of more clutter after spending the past year evicting her own clutter, and watching Iain evict his, so there's that.) Also...fun fact: gifts aren't really our primary love language--but we do like notes and messages and letters! Here's a link to share your advice and well wishes, and to propose a smaller gathering with you/your family: https://forms.gle/bq2Gf8oi9qVWTMuY7

Yay for navigating immigration laws! For the first few months we will be traveling back and forth between two countries. Eventually, ideally, we are planning to live in Ontario, Canada for the next few years while Iain finishes a major nuclear power plant refurbishment project, and Michelle learns how to work remotely and navigate cross-border tax laws. Then we plan to move to Michigan, USA and see if the Yoopers will accept Michelle's flat western accent and her new obsession with water that falls from the sky and covers all the cool rocks with green growing things. All of our grand plans are subject to the narrow-eyed scrutiny of two countries exchanging tariffs and wildfire smoke, so in the meantime we are finding creative ways to intermittently bridge a gap of 2,000 miles with lots of expensive flights and long hours of driving...and hooray for a plethora of communication technology!

We've been asked a few times the question of how or when Iain proposed to Michelle....and honestly, it didn't really occur to either one of us to formally propose to the other. We were much more focused on the complexities of how to build a marriage together than we were on the socially-accepted formalities of planning a wedding. Michelle was feeling geologist-picky about the rings, so Iain agreed that she could choose something she liked. We ended up getting matching rose gold bands--with a hint of copper to honor the long geologic and mining and metalworking history of copper in the area we have come to love. The rings carry the same engraving inside, our new Hutchinson family motto: "you are what you build." The bouquet of tiger lilies honors Michelle's memory of her grandma Emogene and the vibrant flowers in her yard. The date of the wedding honors Iain's grandma Jean's birthday. And Michelle wore the scent of sparkling Love Spell that her sister Lisa gave her for Christmas. But no kneeling, no proposing. Just symbols of things that felt meaningful to both of us.