Fall Micro-Wedding in Kitzbuehel, Austria - Shannon + David

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Shannon & David’s Story

How did you get engaged?

It was a cold November morning in Ellicottville, New York. We went out for a morning hike with our closest friends in an area comprised of massive towering rocks shaped like big buildings, hence the name Rock City State Forest. When our friends were walking through a tight canyon, David called me back to take a picture. When I came back, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him! We spent the rest of the day celebrating with our friends.

Any funny stories leading up to your wedding day?

Exactly one week before we were supposed to fly out for the wedding, David received a text message from his mom, “ This Austria trip is going to kill me. Lol. Guess what, my passport expired. Not even kidding. Didn’t even realize until today.” Not only was his mom’s passport expired but his dad’s passport was nowhere to be found. We spent the evening setting up emergency passport appointments for them for the next morning in a city 4 hours away from them, instructing them on what documents they need and what the process would look like for an emergency passport. We sat on the edge of our seats the whole next day at work hoping that everything would go well and they would be able to get the passports in time. Luckily all went according to plan and they were able to fly over to be with us in our special day! It’s really funny looking back at the whole situation now.

How did you decide on your location?

Both of us love the outdoors and grew up in the mountains in the States. We spend a lot of our weekends camping, hiking, kayaking, and just generally being outdoors. We knew that we didn’t want a big traditional wedding, and David brought up the idea of eloping. We had planned on doing our honeymoon in the Austrian Alps because Shannon’s family is from there, and so we combined the two ideas and thought, well, why don’t we just do our elopement there?
We were so excited at the possibility that we mentioned our idea to some of our friends, and they said they would really like to come, so we decided to proceed with getting married in Austria!

Once we had made the decision, Shannon was researching photographers and came across Cat. She saw that Cat does mountain hiking elopements, loved the idea, and we started to plan on doing both the hike in the morning and then a small wedding in the afternoon. We knew we wanted both dramatic mountain views and scenic lake photos, so we contacted Cat, and she picked our gorgeous hiking spot, and Shannon found a wonderful restaurant, Das Steghaus, alongside the Schwarzsee in Kitzbühel, for the wedding ceremony to take place at!

What were the biggest challenges you faced in planning your wedding?

Our biggest challenge was getting everything we needed for our wedding and honeymoon overseas with us. We ended up flying with an extra-deep garment bag that allowed us to hold the wedding dress and the tuxedo together, a checked suitcase, two Osprey 40L backpacks, and two small backpacks.

What is your favourite moment/memory from the day?

David’s favorite memory of the day was getting to do the reveal up on the mountain.
Shannon’s favorite memory of the day was turning to David during the hike and saying, “I just wish you could get to see a Mountain Goat, they’re so cool.” And less than a minute later, a mountain goat bounds down from the brush above the trail.

Is there anything you are really glad you did? Or didn’t do?

We are really glad that we wrote our own vows and read them out loud in front of our loved ones. Shannon is especially glad that she wore fleece-lined tights underneath her hiking gear & wedding dress so she could stay warm during the hike. We are also really glad that for our ceremony part of our day, we kept the wedding guest count under 30 people, so the people we had there were our closest loved ones and friends who mean a lot to us!

What advice would you give to other couples planning their wedding?

Don’t be afraid to pursue doing both a hike and a wedding ceremony, but make sure you go with Cat, because we could not have done it all without her!!

What was your favourite thing about working with Cat?

Our favorite thing about working with Cat was that she brought such genuine joyful energy and truly felt like she could have been one of our longtime friends. Leading up to the day she sent us amazing tidbits of information about the region and culture and things we should know which helped us feel so prepared. Cat is truly an angel on earth and we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect experience!!