Where to begin. I still don’t have the words. Nick and Sierra and I went to Iceland this April so they could get married. Just the two of them and me. We took a red eye from Boston together and arrived obscenely early the day before their ceremony. We spent a quiet day trying to get a little sleep, wandering around Reykjavik, and making plans for the next day.

The next morning I woke up to a blindingly sunny day. Most people associate Iceland with clouds and rain and fog, and the last time I had been there that’s what we had gotten. But this day was bright and clear and cold. Nick and Sierra got ready at our hotel and then did a first look just outside on the street before we all piled into the car and spent the rest of the day driving around this wild, beautiful country. We climbed on moss and walked through black sand, and we talked for hours in the car about all sorts of things – our aspirations and hopes for the future, their upcoming honeymoon in Europe, our cats (ok maybe we mostly talked about our cats). Originally, they had wanted to get married at a waterfall, but when we got there it was crowded with people and it didn’t feel right. So we drove. We drove past the tourists and the little towns until we came to a spot of land that seemed like the place. We pulled over to the side of the road and Nick and Sierra promised themselves to one another with only the mountains and the sea and me as witness. They said their vows to each other and to the vast land around us. It was a profound thing to have seen and heard.

Then, we drove some more. They held each other in front of thundering waterfalls and on the tops of cliffs as the bright sun sank lower. We gingerly made our way over sheets of ice and got soaked in the mist of Seljalandsfoss. Before we left, I turned my face up toward the mist and closed my eyes as the cold hit my cheeks and nose.

Nick hardly ever stopped smiling and you could feel the happiness radiating off of Sierra the whole day. We stopped at a gas station on the way home and they shared their first meal as newlyweds with me there – sandwiches from Quiznos. When it finally got dark near 10:00 we started back toward the city and our beds. I remember sitting in the back seat and watching the stars as we drove and wondering how I got so damn lucky that I got to meet and know these two and share this day with them.

Thank you to Bloma Nattura for Sierra’s lovely crown and bouquet.

JFDR- White Sun