NRS ambassadors Susan Hollingsworth and Adam Elliott are two of our favorite people. Better yet, they’re one of our favorite couples. When they tied the knot last fall, they threw a wedding celebration befitting the simple, elegant lifestyle they’ve built around paddling, community and each other—a three-day excursion with friends and family on the remote Oregon Coast.
Adam and I haven’t relied much on material goods in the four years we’ve been together. In fact, we met in a fantastically minimalist environment—an international multi-day rafting trip on the Great Bend of the Yangtzee River in China. Since then we’ve lived in cars, out of duffel bags, and more recently in a one-room studio apartment.
We laughed at the idea of spending tens of thousands of dollars on a one-day wedding. However, in order to honor our community and our place on this planet, we wanted celebrate our marriage with a big group of friends and family in a place where the natural beauty humbles and uplifts the spirit.
And we wanted to have a big party.
So, we decided on an affordable (for us and our guests) wedding excursion at a remote destination on the Oregon Coast, a multi-day adventure not unlike a good river trip. The results were as unexpected as they were magical.
The Setting
For a couple that navigates whitewater rivers as a way of life, the ocean represents a wilderness yet to be explored. The crashing waves, the never-ending expanse and the mysterious currents beneath the surface captivate our attention. They inspire a deep respect for the ocean and the coastal environment that brushes up against it.
If our wedding was to bring over a hundred people to a remote location, that location would have to provide for all their basic needs: sleeping, eating and staying warm. The infrastructure at Camp Westwind, a 500-acre coastal preserve and retreat, went above and beyond this requirement. Not surprisingly, many of our guests took to the woods, sand dunes and beach with their tents. Other guests stayed in cabins equipped with bunks, pads and a heater. A grand dining hall and kitchen served our meals, and amenities like a massive deck, a dance hall, fireplaces, common areas and large bathrooms kept our guests comfortable and cozy in the midst of the coastal wilds.
The Activities
While the indoors provided comfort and warmth for relaxation, the world outside provided endless recreation potential, both on land and on water.
Adam’s sisters grabbed their stand-up paddle boards and paddled up the Salmon River’s estuary. Friends zipped up their wetsuits, donned their paddling gear and charged into the ocean’s waves to catch the surf. Nieces built sand castles, and others strolled along the mile of private beach.
After the rehearsal, Adam and I grabbed some friends and family and hiked up to a high meadow on a nearby cliff. The path led us up through a Sitka Spruce forest dripping with spanish moss, past a hidden tranquil lake and into an open meadow that overlooked our camp, the estuary and the coastline.
Adam and I stole a moment here as our friends sat quietly, admiring the view. We saw nearly twenty people bobbing in the ocean’s rolling expanse on surf boards and stand-up boards, in sea kayaks and playboats. We spotted another group in the distance, returning from a mission to explore nearby sea caves. Our dog, Wallace, sat next to us, taking a moment of rest from charging through the woods and sand dunes in non-stop play mode.
The Logistics
It is common wisdom that one’s wedding day speeds by in a blur. You won’t have time to eat. You won’t remember everything that happened. And you sure won’t get to talk to everyone you’ve invited. We found this norm unacceptable, unable to leave the good times to just our guests. Therefore, we spent a hefty amount of time planning systems and logistics that would let us step away from the details during the weekend.
Luckily, we both have experience planning multi-day river trips. Even just a few days on the water can take months securing permits, assembling meals and gathering gear. But once you push off from the riverbank, you transition from planning-mode to fully experiencing every moment.
A three day destination wedding required a similar level of detail-oriented planning. We placed guests in cabins according to physical ability and their connection to the bride and groom. Young, fit river guides hiked to the cabins 100 feet up the mountain while a gaggle of aunts settled into a cabin closer to the main hall.
We also took the commonly heard advice “your guests really do want to help out” to heart and assigned friends and family to help out with breakfast prep, or lunch clean-up. There were baggage helpers, kid’s craft leaders, and decorators. With 130 guests, most everyone had at least one place to offer assistance, leaving Adam and me to enjoy our guests’ company.
Of course, we hired someone to clean the bathrooms at the end of the weekend.
The Ceremony
Even with the extensive logistics required to feed, house and entertain our guests for the weekend, Adam and I managed to not leave the ceremony planning to the very last minute. We began by outlining the elements of our relationship that we wanted to emphasize—our love for spending time on the river and in nature, our desire to travel and explore new places both together and as individuals, and, lastly, our strong connection to the community of friends and family that would accompany us along that journey.
By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, we had already celebrated these elements hard. As I emerged from the forest and out onto the vast beach, then walked down the aisle-of-paddles, I felt the support and love of my community more than ever before.
Our friend, Cope, spoke during the ceremony, capturing it all perfectly: “River trips are not just about the beautiful scenery or the challenging rapids or the connection with nature. They are about the connections made with people. On a river trip, or any adventure, the real human comes out. Connections are born from joy and strengthened through adversity. Adam and Susan have lived a life of adventure and they have seen a lot of real humans. Now, they choose to combine their talents, patience and their wisdom with each other forever.”
And, with that, we walked into the sunset, literally, as more than just husband and wife—as husband and wife with our loved ones by our side.
The Things We Could Never Have Planned
The wedding surpassed my every expectation, and not just because it worked out as planned. We were blown away with all the experiences we could never have planned, such as the late-night bonfires on the beach, with guitars playing and voices singing as we ran through tidepools to ignite the bioluminescence. Like a friend catching and cooking us massive dungeness crabs. Like the roses and champagne waiting for us in our cabin.
Most of all, we could never have planned the way it all fit perfectly together to honor both our vows and the people we cherish most in our lives.
Rob Elliott, Adam’s father and the subject of “The Elder” in the Souls + Water film series, said it well: “We all were witnesses, and participants, and the “take-aways” for all of us were incalculable. Your joining together in marriage with us will, and should, remain a constant reminder of how interconnected we all are, starting each with our own intimate relationships and expanding outwards to our family, our extended family, our friends, other species (represented by Wallace of course), to all of life and the universe. I will always remember your answer to my question: ‘Is that what you intended your wedding to mean?’ and you replied simply, ‘Yes.’”