An Interview with Claire & Josiah:
Tell us about your love story.
Claire: We actually met in 2019 at Main Street in Bozeman. There's a festival they do every summer, and we met at one point there. We played bingo at a bar and then didn't acknowledge each other for like another year.
Josiah: We had a mutual friend, and Claire and that friend were kind of seeing each other, but not really. But when that friend got married in June of 2020, Claire was invited with a group of other friends who all did swing dancing together, and I was in the wedding. I met her, and I was like, oh, she's really cute. Let me try to dance with her, hang out, and impress her. It kind of works, but she was spending the summer at a different town. So we texted for a couple weeks, and it was kind of just like, it's kind of hard to make anything happen if you're halfway across the state. Later that year, in October/November, we matched on Bumble or something. I was like, oh, I actually know who she is. Let me just text her instead. I invited her to a house party for Halloween, which my birthday is the day after. I was like, hey, you want to come hang out at our Halloween party? And she's like, I have some friends over, I don't think we'll be able to make it. And then the next day I was like, well, it was actually my birthday. And she's like, oh, well, what the heck?
Claire: If you would have said it was your birthday, I would have gone.
Josiah: So a lot of bouncing around. We've known of each other, but didn't really have the opportunity to hang out and connect until…
Claire: Until he guilt tripped me for not coming to his birthday party.
Josiah: Yeah, so then we hung out and started seeing each other over the holidays, and it was great.
I have a dog, and Claire loves dogs, so we bonded over hanging out with him, and taking walks, and hikes, and hanging out in the snow. As I was trying to move things forward, she was like, hey, I want to move. I'm graduating college.
I want to move out of the state. I really had to ask myself how much I like this girl. I was in the middle of applying for a job, and if I had gotten the job, I would have been solidified in that particular town for a while. I talked to her about it, and I ended up withdrawing my application, and we moved halfway across the country. Now, we're in Arizona, and it's been great. There have been some learning curves as we've tried to figure out how each other lives and operates, but it's been a blast. She opened my eyes to a whole lot of different things like travel and the way that she was raised.
And then I feel like I've opened her eyes to a lot of things. It was kind of, I don't want to say it was inevitable because it did take some work. But being able to grow and learn each other in a different city was great. It’s been an amazing experience.
Where did you get married and why did you pick that venue?
Claire: We got married at the Somers Mansion in Somers, Montana, just north of Flathead Lake.
It's on the very tip up there. It's so pretty. The venue overlooks the lake. I actually happened upon it as soon as they had launched their website. They quite literally launched their website the day before I found it. I had been looking in that area and was like, I can't find anything that I like. I wanted something that was elegant, and in Montana, there's a lot of venues that are a bit more rustic, and I didn’t want to go too rustic. But I like the rustic feel.
Josiah: Claire's kind of a cowgirl at heart, but she would much rather be born in Victorian England.
Claire: Bridgerton is my dream.
Josiah: And I'm not a big cowboy. I don't even own a pair of cowboy boots, and I’m from Montana. But I am outdoorsy, and I was like, I would like to get married outside and see exactly what we could do that fits both of us. I'm okay with the old Victorian stuff. We actually got engaged in Scotland at a castle, so I was like, how can we bring a little bit of our engagement to people? I thought it was a good opportunity to bring some of that influence we both love so much to our families and our friends when we were getting married in Montana. We were lucky to stumble upon this perfect venue that we were both looking for in our home areas, without it really being something that was going to be too Western.
Claire: And the mansion is gorgeous. It's so pretty. Inside the mansion is all this gold and gorgeous antiques. It felt very castle-y inside the mansion, which we loved. And then you have the outdoor spaces that felt very Montana still, so that was our balance. It was so pretty. I'm obsessed. And you can stay there, which was even better.
What was your wedding must-have?
Claire: I fought with my mom probably about this more than anything. Not fighting. Constructive conversation, but I really wanted real plates. I didn't want to have plastic plates. I wanted real plates.
I wanted real silverware. I didn't want plastic fold-up chairs. The venue had those nice wood fold-up chairs.
There's a couple things. I didn't want it to feel like a picnic. I wanted it to feel like a true wedding where if you were to have it in the castle, it would feel like you're in a castle.There's those tangible items like, I don't want people to have to throw away their own plate at the end of the night.
What was something you splurged on?
Josiah: Kind of the answer to the opposite question, but something we both wanted was to bring the outdoors to the tables. We were thrifty with going out and gathering moss and doing the stuff there. So most of our table decor was actually stuff that we foraged. But to answer the question directly, something we both splurged on was putting the whole picture together. Even though we might have been a little bit frugal on some things, the idea was to make the whole experience the same for everybody on the bigger scale.
Claire: It was so good. My mom worked so long. She collected all of the moss, and then we did the florals that were in there morning of, and she did so good.
My mom did a ton of work for the wedding. She did all of the cooking, collected all the moss, and did 99.9% of the setup. She killed it.
What was your “something borrowed”?
Claire: My “something borrowed” was my garter.
It was originally my mom's, and my aunt made it. It was baby blue, and my aunt had put E plus P on it for my mom and my dad, Erin and Pete. And then on the other side, she also put C and J for Josiah and I.
What was your first dance song?
Claire: Stargazing by Myles Smith
What was a detail that made the wedding completely your own?
Claire: The table names or my horseshoe with my bouquet.
Josiah: She made our seating chart with the names of the rivers in Montana where people were from. So like, we had the Kootenay River for my family who lived up by Kallispell, and we had the Salt River, which is a river in Arizona for our Arizona friends.
Claire: Or like the Bitterroot river for my family down in Hamilton and Stevensville. Everybody was organized by where they were from. I tried. There were a couple people who were floaters.
Josiah, did you cry?
Josiah: I did. Actually, it's funny. We were standing there waiting to walk down the aisle, and my buddy, one of my groomsmen, was joking around because when he got married, he did not cry. And so his wife will give him crap.
She’ll be like, you don't love me enough, you never cried at the wedding when you saw me. I can get teary eyed, but I’m not a big cryer. We were standing there, and we were looking at our watches to see what our heart rates were. By the time we get to the end, we're standing there, and I'm looking at my heart rate, and it’s like 130 something before Claire comes down the aisle. I was kind of chuckling. But when I turned around, it was fully organic. She looked gorgeous, and it was like, oh, wow, this is it.
This is awesome. And yeah, so I did tear up a little bit.
Which of your vendors went above and beyond?
Claire: Oh, definitely our photographer.
Alissa absolutely killed it, and we had so many planning meetings beforehand of inspiration and things that we were looking for, and she hit the nail on the head with absolutely everything.
Josiah: She loves it too, so it's fun to be like, this is something that we like and her being, yes, let's do it 100% and being super passionate about our goal.
Claire: While still honing her craft.
She did such an amazing job. Also, our content creator/videographer Lizz from Bliss and Bloom Media. She did content creation for most of the day, but I also asked her to fully film our ceremony. Oh my gosh, she did such a good job. I'm obsessed with everything that she captured. I love that she even caught the things I wasn’t there to witness. It was just so fun going through all of the videos afterwards.
Josiah: We also asked the FFA if there were any members who would be willing to work for our dinners. We didn't do a traditional food caterer. We leveraged them to do the serving and the plating, and they absolutely knocked it out of the park.
Claire: They were so cute. They cleared our plates.
They did everything. They even stayed later than they were supposed to, helping clean up, and they were just so sweet.
I believe it was three girls. My mom coordinated all of this. They were so sweet, and they absolutely crushed it, and they just kept asking, okay, what else do you need help with?
Is there anything else we can do? They were just so good.
What advice would you give to future couples?
Josiah: Whenever Claire and I have a disagreement about something, usually it's something stupid. We actually haven't had a disagreement that actually matters.
The way we've learned to resolve it is to remember it's less about you versus me or me being right and you being right. It's you and I versus the problem. And if something isn't being done, is it something that belongs to one person or is it something that we can tag team and resolve together.
Vendors:
-Venue: Somers Mansion @somersmansion
-Photographer: Fifield Photo @fifield.photo
-Content Creator/Videographer: Bliss and Bloom Media @blissandbloommedia
-Florals: Bizzy Blooms @bizzy.blooms
-Cake: Cakes in the Zoo @cakesinthezoo
-Hair: Pura Vida Salon @puravidasalonmt
-Nails: Nefretiri Hawkins @nailneffmani
-Getting Ready Outfits: Birdy Grey @birdygrey
-Spray Tan: On the Glow @_ontheglow
-Table Linens: Decor by Dulce @decorbydulce
-Dress: Velvet Bride @velvetbride
-Jewelry: Helzberg Diamonds @helzbergdiamonds and Rare Carat @rarecarat
-DJ: Destination DJ @ddj406
-Bartending: Treasure State Hospitality @treasure_statehospitality
