I think I once read a statistic that said most unmarried people of marrying age have already met their future spouse, but they just haven’t realized it yet. I can’t tell you if that’s true, as a statistic, but I spent two years in exactly that limbo, looking everywhere for an answer that had already been presented to me.

The answer was living in Bozeman, Montana. I was living in Berlin, Germany. We crossed paths in May 2003 at a reunion of a journalism fellowship program in which we had both taken part. The reunion was in the building of Johns Hopkins SAIS (which I believe stands for School of Amorous Initiatives Studies) in Washington DC. Anne was exhibiting pictures she had taken in a squatter camp in South Africa during her fellowship. Smart, well-traveled, beautiful, a photojournalist—what not to like? But the daunting geographic hurdles, as well as an allusion, during a brief conversation, to a pre-existing emotional entanglement convinced me to drop the case.

Two years of wandering in the desert, so to speak, led us to another meeting at another fellowship reunion in New York, on May 17, 2005. I saw her at the bar. I remembered her. I had moved to New York in the meantime, so the geographics had definitely improved. But that wasn’t the only issue. “So, are you married?” I called out over the din. She shook her head. “Engaged?” Another negative. “Is that your boyfriend?” I asked, pointing to the guy she was talking to. Another shake of the head. “Well, then, let me buy you a drink!”

I ordered a round of vodka martinis, including her friend out of sheer gratitude that he wasn’t dating her. The drinks were strong and the promised food never materialized, so the whole get-together was loud and in best spirits. A late-night dinner at a diner in the Meatpacking district followed, four of us, talking quality journalism issues: covering the war in Iraq, the impact of one-man video teams on journalism, how it could possibly take this long for the waitress to bring us our fries. Anne painted a particularly appealing picture of life in Bozeman, and invited me out to visit.

I saw her again in July for three days in New York, and then I managed to get out to Bozeman in August. Even at the height of summer the weather there was springlike, crystalline, weightless. Impressions were simple and bold: blue skies big enough to induce vertigo, breezes like the touch of freshly laundered sheets, snow-capped mountains in the distance, the smell of a summer barbecue. But that’s not what I fell in love with.

For those of you who don’t know Anne, let me take a moment to explain. She is from Annapolis, Maryland but moved out to Bozeman ten years ago to pursue her goal of becoming a photojournalist. Realizing that dream has taken her across the American West and around the world. She understands with her head but leads with her heart. In between assignments she has also built a successful wedding photography business (trust me, she has a lot of opinions, all good, about organizing our fest). Perhaps the most amazing thing is to witness the strength of the emotional ties within her family, among her friends, and to her cats. Who wouldn’t want to be included? For those of you who don’t know me, I’m from Ithaca, New York, a journalist with a slightly erratic career path that has included launching various photo businesses in Moscow, joining in the late-90s Internet hyperventilation in San Francisco, and trying to learn Spanish (and slurp cerveza) in Seville. The key statistic is that, if I were to move to Bozeman, it would be the tenth city I’ve lived in over the last seven years. (It wouldn’t increase the continent count, however, from three.) I have always insisted that I don’t have deeply-rooted emotional fear of deep roots. I prefer to view my geographic gyrations in terms of someone searching for, not running from.

By the time I left, in early September, I was planning more than my next trip out to Bozeman. Trouble was, I had managed to increase the geographic absurdity of the operation by taking on a half-time job in Kiev, Ukraine for which I had to be present two weeks each month. But the will smoothed the way, she came out to Kiev twice and I made it back to Bozeman. We met in New York, traveled to Paris, and spent Christmas with my family in Rome.

Now the snow was melting, even in Kiev, and the one-year anniversary of re-meeting was upon us. I was out in Bozeman again. I conned a family diamond from the 1800s out of my parents, had it set into a ring at a local jeweler and then recommended we go hiking to celebrate our anniversary. We hiked up Emigrant peak. Looking out over Paradise Valley—c’mon, perfect name—I pulled out the ring, and the question. Weakened from the hike, thirsty, perhaps suffering from a touch of sunstroke, Anne said yes. Yes!

This is the part of the story where you come in. September 18. That’s a Monday, a perhaps slightly untraditional wedding day caused primarily by various scheduling conflicts. Also, let’s be honest, it’s time to give the concept of Monday a bit of a reputation makeover. We hope you’ll be able to join us.

Otto and Anne