I was introduced, virtually, to a young couple, Susannah and Joshua Beckett, who had mar­ried recently in Nepal. Nothing very unusual about that. But this adven­turous pair got married on the edge of Birendra Lake, on the Manaslu and Tsum Valley trek. In their bare feet no less! Aside from the obvious ‘why Manaslu?’ I wanted to know ‘why bare feet?’ Stiletto heels would have been out of question for the bride on the slippery snow and trekking boots would have been just plain wrong! So under her tra­ditional white backless wedding dress, the bride wore nothing on her feet. And it would have hardly been fair for the groom to have warm toes while his bride did not. Being that most brides dream about their wedding day from a young age, I was curi­ous to find out more about the cou­ture side of things.

 

Says Susannah: “I had to change into my dress behind an old, stone hut, being very careful not to get it in yak dung! Josh had assured me that no matter the size or the weight of the dress we would find a way to get it up the mountain, so I was determined to keep it clean.”

 

“On top of the yak dung, my hair and make-up weren’t done and Josh hadn’t showered for 11 days.”

 

I would think any couple willing to go through these hardships must really love the mountains. “We live in Whitehorse Yukon in Canada and spend every weekend we can in the mountains. I actually want­ed to have a big wedding with friends and family but Josh wanted to elope!” Susannah laughs. “And once we made that choice, the decision to marry in the moun­tains was easy. Next we decided on Nepal. It was actually very easy to organize. And we had a beautiful location with amazing mountains all around us.”

 

Having been to Nepal before, the couple wanted a less touristy venue for their wedding so chose the area of the Manaslu and Tsum Valley trek. “Our guide, Deepak, was the one who suggested the actual spot we got married in and he even picked a bouquet of flowers for me.”

 

Looking at the fantastic photos of the couple and the overwhelming­ly beautiful scenery, I discovered the photographer came all the way from Vietnam. “I accepted the invi­tation by Magical Nepal, the tour operator, because I thought I might never get a second chance at such a special project,” says Inra Jaya, the photographer. “Many things happened on this trip that I could not even have imagined. The beauty of the countryside, the cold, and the long distances we had to walk. And the fact the bride and groom were very experienced trek­kers and fast walkers!”

 

Amid the majestic beauty of the mountains, and the almost panto­mime image of Susannah getting into her wedding dress, with no bridesmaid to help, and hands fro­zen with cold, I wondered if there were any incidents that stood out. Says Josh, the groom, “On the wed­ding day itself, we had a three-hour hike to the wedding spot, spent a couple of hours for the ceremony and photographs then made our way back to Sama Gaon”.

 

At that point, “I realized I had left our phones at the wedding location so I had to sprint back up the moun­tain. By the time I did that and got back there was just time for a quick meal and to send a few messages to family and friends before going to sleep. So much for celebration and honeymoon! We did actually have a bottle of champagne with us but we kept that for the last day of the trip,” he fondly recalls.