I am sure within the course of my blogging “career” I will have touched on a bit on the journey to marrying a European and all that entails visa and life wise. So I will start off this enticing story with stating that not just anyone can come to the United States and get married. I know! Crazy right?
So let me set the stage: A very engaged couple traipsed off to Bulgaria with a big white dress in tow in hopes that they could elope. They had no idea where they were going to get married, but had plans to be in Italy later on in the spring and thought “Hey! This could do the trick.” They had put in the paperwork for a K1 Visa with hopes it would be approved in the spring as well so they could come Stateside and celebrate.
I believe it was around late February when my mother called me with this thoughtful plan to throw us a wedding in Arizona! This is every easy-go-lucky bride’s dream! The problem was that we had to set a date, but had no idea when Nash’s visa was going to be approved. (They don’t really give you any information on the processing of your visa). We decided to play it a bit risky and say May 1st, 2017 in hopes that all the paperwork would fall into place. Besides the date I really didn’t have to make any more decisions. I had my dress and my family was taking care of the rest.
Fast forward to April, we have set aside the whole month to be on our “honeymoon.” Clearly because we know how to party we had our honeymoon before our wedding. We were given the opportunity to take special cruises based on a company we had worked for in the past and if we had not taken the opportunity to go on them we would lose the benefits. So we embarked on two week long cruises from Rome, Italy. We were able to spend a few days enjoying Rome and there we ran into some friends from where we used to work at in Alaska. Not unlike most rare happenstances we found that we would both be stateside during the time of the wedding so we took a leap and asked Nick to be Nash’s best man. He excepted! We truly have some amazing friends!
While we were in Italy we got the call about Nash’s visa interview and Nash had to fly back early to take his visa interview. We were cutting it close to our wedding date. We bought our plane tickets and were just waiting for Nash to get his passport back. We planned to arrive the day before our wedding simply because we had no other choice. We started the journey stateside and had layovers in Serbia, Sweden, and Las Angeles. During our 16hr layover in Serbia they canceled our flight and rescheduled. They did not inform us when our flight was rescheduled for until about 6hrs later. Meaning we missed our connecting flight in Sweden.
Once we had arrived in Sweden we were barely let into the country, because we didn’t
have a valid plane ticket out of the country. They eventually let us through and we spent the next hour on the phone with the airline company to see to it that we could make it Phoenix the day before our wedding still. No one was willing to help us so we had to spend the night in Sweden and catch a flight to Iceland in the morning. We didn’t have to buy all new flights, but we did have to fit the bill for our hotel room and the price for checking our bags at each location. Leaving us a little shorter on funds and feeling a bit defeated.
We were able to make it to LA and Nash made it through customs fairly painlessly. Our flight from LAX to PHX was delayed over an hour and by the time wheels hit the ground in Phoenix it was the day of our wedding. We headed to my parents house where we were asleep at around 2am.
It’s wedding day! Nash doesn’t have a suit and we don’t have a marriage license so we were up early with our missions. We had sent Nash’s measurements ahead of time to the suit company, but when we arrived we had a suit that would fit a toddler. Luckily they were able to get together a suit that would be a bit more size appropriate. We finally feel like we can start to relax so we head over to the hotel and venue. My father has a restaurant at a golf course with stunning views so we already have a beautiful venue. When I checked in I was kicked out, because everything was a surprise!
The wedding was truly a family event from the food to the decor to the officiant. My 
father and uncle tackled an amazing blend of Italian and Bulgarian food while my second mother made our wedding cake herself last minute. The decorations were beautiful and inspired by our love for travel. My sisters, cousin, and my best friend were able to make all the decorations. We wanted someone special to us to officiate the wedding so we asked my mother’s uncle. It was the first time my uncle Tom had ever officiated a wedding and we were so excited to have him be apart of our beautiful day.
Everything started to come together at this point and we were able to enjoy ourselves and start to relax. Nash did not know much about American weddings so we had to walk him through it a little bit and was instantly put at ease once our bridal party started to arrive. While I was getting ready Nash sent me a text asking if our friend Dallin could be apart of the bridal party. Nash’s family was not able to make it to the wedding for visa reasons so anything to make him feel a little more comfortable and supported. We love Dallin and Allie so the more the merrier!
The wedding ceremony went on without a hitch and it was such a special ceremony. Uncle Tom surprised us with great jokes and everything about our ceremony was personalized for us. We wrote our own vows and were so excited to share that moment with our friends and family. 
Now it was time to party! The restaurant looked amazing and the food was delicious. Everyone worked so hard and we truly felt so loved by everyone who was able to make
this amazing day. The toasts were amazing and there was not a dry eye in the room. Nash’s best man Nick gave a really touching toast and told the amazing story of how he came to be the best man. Finding friends in a crowd of 10,000 people is amazing enough let alone finding your friends from across the world. We had so much fun and enjoyed everyone being apart of our big day. We finished the night pretty early because of jet lag and all the emotions that go into a wedding, but it was a perfect day.
All in all we were so blown away by all the hard work that was put into this day for us. From what we thought our wedding was going to be when we got engaged to what it was able to transform into was mind blowing. Here is a long list of people I wanted to acknowledge and thank for such an amazing day:
Lastly I wanted to thank the DC Bar & Grill staff who made all of our lives a little easier and helped serve, set up, and clean.
Love,
P.S. I was hoping this would be a short post but 1600 words later I would say that I have gotten a bit off course. I hope that you enjoyed reading a bit about a wonderfully chaotic journey to the altar.
Narley Travel Blog 
It was a truly special day and a joy to be there. Aunt S.
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