Our Story
Written by Lily
Some have asked why our wedding will be in the mountains in Vermont while other locations may be easier, I hope this story sheds some light:
2017
Sitting in the study room of the hiking club building in early spring of 2017, I leaned over and asked a grimaced Dev (whom I knew only by name) if he’d like to practice presenting the project he was working on to me. After, we went about our lives but took to chatting every time we were in the same study room (Dev seemed to conveniently ‘run-in’ to me in that study room a lot more after we first met). We continued studying together, though I don’t think much work was ever accomplished when we did. As spring rolled into summer, a summer we both spent on campus, we ventured out of the study room onto hikes in the white mountains, Vermont farmer’s markets, and picnic dates on Balch Hill.
When I say we “fell in love” I mean, if love were a mountain, we tripped and started rolling, slow at first but gradually gaining mass and momentum. That was a sweet summer of swinging in hammocks under magnolia trees and lying in the tall grass on warm evenings listening to the crickets as the sky faded into a stellar view of constellations in the clear New Hampshire sky. As the fall semester came around and both of our studies picked up in intensity again (Dev was an economics and computer science double major, and I studied systems engineering) we learned to be each other’s support system and what love meant even when life wasn’t easy through late night chocolate deliveries from Dev or cooking Dev’s favorite pasta dish for him after a coding session that stretched into the early hours of the morning.
2018
After half a year of intertwining our college lives, we parted ways for the spring term with me off to Colorado and Dev off to Boston for internships. While across the country, we learned to support each other even from afar and managed to squeeze in a few hikes together with a visit or two. All while apart, we planned a big endeavor and at the end of our months of long-distance, we ventured off for the John Muir trail.
We hiked for 17 days, 220 miles (355 km) from Yosemite to Mt Whitney (the tallest mountain in the contiguous US), traversing the Sierra Nevadas mostly above 10,000 ft (3000 m). On this trip we had a satellite phone for emergencies, but no smartphones, music, social media, or connection with the outside world. We carried everything we had for 17 days alone in the wilderness with just the conversation of the other for entertainment and our map to ponder at the end of a long day.
That’s not to say that every moment was easy. We learned to enjoy quiet mornings together over coffee with a view of the mountains that often stopped our breath. We adapted to communicate even without words, intuiting what the other needed, setting up camp, packing, unpacking, trekking, and cooking, day in and day out in a rhythm like the wind and streams around us. I would share what I knew about the anatomy of trees while Dev struggled up the mountain passes (after a summer of computer work) and Dev would sing as we scrambled down the other side on achy knees, balancing the weight of our packs on the rough gravel descent.
We climbed the knife’s edge of the ascent up to the summit of Mt. Whitney (14,508 ft/4422 m) through the night guided by the light of our headlamps; at that altitude deep in the heart of the Sierra Nevadas there is nothing, not even the blanket we call an atmosphere of air particles and pollution to separate us from the vastness of the Milky Way. We watched the sunrise from the highest point in the United States, the very curvature of the earth itself the only thing blocking the sun from view as it inched its way up. We scuttled off the summit mostly in a hurry to get out of the frigid wind and feel our fingers again. As we crept back down the knife’s edge in the light of clear dawn, I realized that after weeks with nothing but Dev in my life, I hadn’t had enough of him. I was lamenting the prospect of re-entering a world occupied by anybody else. Even at 20 years old, I think we both knew that if we could enjoy 17 days isolated together in the woods, we could surpass anything.
I remember the exact moment I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Dev.
2019
We returned for our senior year of college, and again to the joys of life in New England and the tribulations of finishing up challenging degrees. Between studying we found moments of joy with early morning diner runs and afternoons spent skating over frozen ponds. During our winter break, we traveled internationally for the first time together, to Japan and Thailand with our friend Rachel. Our collective love of learning, and our desire to share the other’s interests meant we’d never get bored together.
We graduated from Dartmouth and took jobs in California and Colorado, certain that we could pursue our careers while supporting each other from afar.
Dev and me at graduation - he held his cap sideways by accident :)
2020
With the onset of the pandemic, the world became largely subsumed with grief, fear, and isolation. These feelings didn’t escape us, but in our corner of the world, Dev’s job went remote around when I began my PhD, so Dev was able to move across the country to be with me. While it was certainly a lonely time in a new city for us, we knew we could be alone together, having been much more isolated while trekking. We were on our own little pandemic quarantine rocketship filled with tea, cozy slippers, and Ted Lasso episodes, punctuated by walks around the block to stretch our legs, sometimes even with new friends we’d never seen without a mask on.
2021
With vaccines came the ability to crack open our pandemic shell and experience living in a city for the first time together (albeit a city that feels more like a collection of neighborhoods) we sought new urban adventures via concerts at the local jazz bar, dressing up for the symphony, and our favorite vegan Polish restaurant. We also made friends through my grad program and got our dog, Sheldon.
2022
After years of working remotely from home as a programmer, Dev started to feel like he could do more and began considering how to pivot to a career he’s thought about since he watched the West Wing with his dad as a kid: government. And so he took a fellowship as a tech advisor to the senate commerce committee. Before parting ways for another year of long distance, we went backpacking in West Virginia with a few friends and our dog, where Dev got on one knee and asked me if I would marry him. Dev makes the mundane exciting and the rough times smooth, so of course, I said “yes”.
2023
After countless adventures, we took an entirely new type of one: we traveled to India to meet Dev’s family with all of my family. In India, I had the warmest welcome into Dev’s family. We had long been each other’s partner, but for the first time, we truly became each other’s family.
2024 & Beyond
The world is brighter and life is sweeter with Dev in my life, I can’t wait to see what the next adventure brings us.
