Brayden Boyd and Michelle Fonseca stand atop Mt. Cokely, west of Parksville, on their wedding day May 9. (submitted/Mike McInnes)

By Alex Rawnsley

TOP OF THE WORLD

Cancelled wedding for Nanaimo couple leads to creative, sky-high solution

May 27, 2020 | 11:35 AM

NANAIMO — A local couple tied the knot in the most unique of circumstances, while connecting with family thousands of kilometres away.

Brayden Boyd and Michelle Fonseca had organized a July destination wedding in Mexico, where Michelle’s family lives, but plans were abruptly derailed when COVID-19 shut down international travel indefinitely.

In lieu of a celebration in Mexico, Brayden and Michelle began piecing together a unique experience atop Mt. Cokely, west of Parksville, with Brayden secretly planning for Michelle’s family to still play a major role in the ceremony.

The surprise involved live-streaming the wedding from on top of a mountain.

“A good friend of mine works with Box 221 Digital Studios in Nanaimo and they’re the ones who put on the live stream,” Brayden said. “It was up to me to try and get everybody involved without having Michelle find out which wasn’t easy.”

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Planning was extensive with Brayden forced to come up with excuses to account for several meetings and tests of the live stream with Michelle’s family.

“We came up with the story that I was just going to be taking up material that family and friends would like for us to read up there,” Brayden said. “Michelle bought that story.”

The secret plan was almost foiled when Michelle’s sister posted on social media, a photo of her entire family on a video call on the wedding day.

Michelle was surprised on the mountain top with an iPad connected to her family in Mexico. The video call allowed her father to virtually give Michelle away, over four thousand kilometres removed from the ceremony.

“Getting up there and realizing when we were on the mountain that everybody was watching, there was so many people on the video chat and I had no idea, no clue, it just meant so much to me,” Michelle said. “You could feel everybody was enjoying the moment right there, they weren’t watching the wedding after it happened.”

West Coast Helicopters provided the transportation for the wedding with CEO Terry Eissfeldt serving as officiant.

“It was hard for her to say her Dad couldn’t make it because of COVID-19 but we all knew, including the groom that wasn’t going to be the case,” Eissfeldt said. “When she realized her Dad was then going to give her away, that just went through the atmosphere.”

The couple said “there’s a party to be had” in Mexico when conditions allow.

They added it was almost fitting their wedding involved a video chat, given after initially meeting in Mexico two years ago, the pair built foundations of their relationship through chatting online.

alex.rawnsley@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alexrawnsley