It's about Love - our small Wedding in the tall Mountains.

No invitations, no gifts, no hullabaloo and no fuss. Years ago, a colleague came storming into my office panicking and asking me if she should use the mouse-grey or dove-grey envelopes for her wedding invitations. My only worry is that it might snow at -20°. Then my feet might freeze to the forest floor because I'm getting married barefoot. Then we would have to get a torch from the hardware store to get me moving again. But I guess we could also use it to roast marshmallows.

It's October 14, 2024, as we stand by a small stream in a secluded mountain valley. Trees with yellow leaves surround us, small animals rustle in the grass nearby, the ground is warm and earthy, it's Indian Summer in Wyoming. The temperature is a balmy 73°F—and there is no sign of the typical October snowstorm. We have the minimum number of guests with us: an officiant who happens to also be our drum-playing lodger, Pastor Jeff, and two witnesses, one a photographer, Dewey, and one an artist, Joy. I didn't say anything to anyone back home in Germany. For some reason I was in the mood for a covert James Bond action. And no fuss.

There is no wind when we arrive. But just as our percussionist pastor raises his voice to start the little ceremony, a wind gust starts to blow. Leaves sweep through the air, dust lifts from the ground. Then a yellow butterfly appears. Silence follows as the wind disappears.

When I came out of the cemetery chapel after my grandmother's funeral in June 2013, a yellow butterfly flew past me. Something I will never forget. And now they are here. All the people who came into my life and sadly left too soon. I've got mist in my eyes even before we start. “Serendipity,” says Jeff.

If you want to know more about bureaucracy, visas and the famous green card - and what our thoughts and plans are - you can skip straight to this paragraph: Wedding USA - Germany: Bureaucracy.

After the wind dies down, Pastor Jeff (in the USA, almost anyone can get a legal license to marry—which may sound like Las Vegas, but it's legal) opens a philosophical book. He quotes a few beautiful lines. But I'm almost happier about his own poetic words he adds at the end: “We are here, together. Side by side forever. Let's keep this day, this hour, this minute and every second in it alive.”

Time. That's all we want. Especially since Rand's devastating cancer diagnosis in November 2022. That's why no gifts. We have enough junk, and there are already far too many piles of garbage in the world. All we really want is time. And no one can wrap time up in glittery paper and give it to us.

The essentials. That's what we're celebrating today. That we are still alive. That we have survived living in two homes over 5,000 miles apart for six years, as well as a two-year pandemic with sudden border closures, and so far surviving a super rare, aggressive fucking cancer. I don't have to promise to stay together through better or worse. We've been through intensely worse times. And fabulously great times as well. All the traveling, the adventures, the nights under the stars, the hikes over mountains, the sunsets. That is all an incredible gift. The fact that we have found each other at all in this huge world is an incredible gift.

As the ceremony winds down, we exchange rings—rings we found on Etsy with etched mountains. Instead of engraved names inside the rings, we chose to have a saying that continues from one ring to the other. “I will always love you...until we meet again.”

We also take out the ceremonial nonsense about death parting us. Death can bugger off. My love, my relationship, my marriage doesn't end just because the person close to my heart is “on the other side.” I know that I will never meet anyone like my husband again. Sometimes he and I believe that we have already met in a previous life. There is so much more to life—to us—than we will ever comprehend.

Our five guests (one witness, the artist, brought her husband and her fluffy dog) begin to clap and hoot. I somehow hear nothing. We are in this dome of yellow autumn leaves looking at each other and in my husband's eyes I see the whole world.

While the witnesses sign the documents on the scratchy wooden picnic table, I test the temperature of the stream water. It is cold. As we take a group photo, I speculate which of us will fall in first. Our pastor, who is a professional drummer and once toured with the Rolling Stones, our first witness, also our photographer lodger with five cats, my husband, who likes to make a dramatic exit on mountains, the fluffy dog, or me, because I accidentally step on a thorn.

In the end, we all make it back home without any major disasters, where we order a big pizza for everyone. We're not restaurant-goers, so why should we go to one today?

The whole shebang cost about $400. My dress was $150, the rings together $155, the pizzas $70, the wedding license $25, and the gas to the mountain valley $5. In Germany, couples spend an average of $8,000 on a wedding, while in the USA the average is an incredible $35,000! I feel below average, happy, and free. Oh yes: my make-up and my jewelry matched my shoes: none.

Two days later, we set off with our tent on a California road trip. Two and a half weeks camping in national parks, deserts, redwoods, and granite cliffs. Two and a half weeks without fixed walls, rare cell phone signals, a solar power panel, and a portable gas stove. It looks like a honeymoon, but only accidentally. We had planned the trip around the weather, not the wedding. Of course, I have an allergic skin reaction to the wedding ring on day two. You can imagine the bad jokes.

At one point, I was getting water at a visitor center in a national park when my husband came into the reception area and asked where his wife went. When I walked past a little later, the ranger stared at me as flabbergasted as if I had just tested his drinking water positive for chloroform. I grinned.

Getting married was never on my bucket list. Either love is real and works, even if “the shit hits the fan,” or it doesn't. But no scrap of paper will change that. Promising that something is forever and ever at the age of 18 or 20 and hoping that it will still be valid 50 years later, is total nonsense. People change—especially in terms of character. No one can promise to still love another person decades from now, because no one knows who they themselves will be in several decades, let alone what anyone else will be. Are any of us still the same person with the same values, characteristics, and interests that we were when we were 18?

I've seen too many broken marriages where people hold on to each other just because it is on that paper they signed decades ago, in a different time, when they were different people. And because it's financially easier or more convenient to stay together than getting divorced.

For that reason, and for the other reasons I mentioned above, we are getting married to celebrate what we have already mastered and that we are, despite everything, still here - now, in the present, the only time that really matters.

Are there any advantages for us now to entering each others countries? No, there's no advantage for us in terms of border crossings, visas, or immigration. I don't want to live in the USA for a thousand reasons (I have a house, family, friends, my own business, and an extremely good social system in Germany...) and we don't want to move Rand to Germany since he has his really successful, ultra-modern cancer treatment in the USA, which fortunately is completely covered by his health insurance. Ripping him away from a team of great doctors and successful treatment methods there would be complete madness.

But what about the green card—that permanent residence permit for foreigners in the USA? Haha, yes. If you think it is a nice extended visitor visa without stay limitations, nope, think again. With a green card, you have to tear down all your home supports, including your residence, job, and insurance. If you are like me and don't want to do that, you're stuck with your tourist visa with limited days and occasional nasty border control officers, even as a spouse. Unfortunately, there is no in-between. It's all or nothing. It's a shame, but that's the law.

In addition, it currently may take up to two years from the time you apply for a green card until you actually receive one. When Rand was diagnosed with his aggressive, incurable, metastatic cancer in late 2022, the doctor hinted that “with luck, he might have another two to three years,” if the chemo treatment was successful. Quick reminder: It's November 2024. I'm a realist. What would I do with a green card even if I wanted one? We don't have time to wait for this shit and I don't want to live alone away from home in the USA after Rand is gone.

Quick reminder: Will it be easier as a spouse to enter at the border now? No, the opposite happens. If you enter the USA on a visitor visa, you must prove that you have strong ties to your home country so that you have a reason to get the fuck out of the Holy United States. Every time. Sometimes requiring intense cross-examinations. Nice here, isn't it? Strong ties include property, a job, a family, etc. in Germany. Sooo, having a husband in the US does the opposite. My husband is now considered a strong tie to the USA—something the border officials may not find amusing at all. There are plenty of horror stories from other international couples on the internet. I'm already looking forward to my next entry. Luckily, when I visit the USA, we try to always enter together, so I have some mental support.

If you're keen on a flood of German paperwork, then you should definitely consider getting married in Germany, where your foreign fiancé needs authenticity certificates, translations of birth certificates from officially approved translation agencies, personal appointments at the registry office or embassies, notarizations, and a wedding visa.

In the USA, you can get married on a normal tourist visa (e.g. ESTA or B2)—all you need is your passport. But beware: If you want to immigrate to the USA afterwards, you must apply for a fiancé visa (K-1) in advance or apply for an adjustment visa (CR-1) afterwards. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages and cost a lot of money and nerves. However, you should investigate this thoroughly before the wedding, otherwise you may make illegal mistakes leading to an entry ban.

In our case, where immigration is not on the docket, we were able to avoid all that. We just strolled to the county clerk with our passports, and in five minutes, we did the paperwork and pick up our marriage license for $25. We then simply got married. Outside in the forest. The officiant and the witnesses all sign the license, and you bring it back to the county clerk the next day, where the marriage is then totally registered.

A marriage contract in the USA—If done legally—is also recognized in Germany. To do this, you take your American marriage certificate to the citizens' office in your city in Germany and register it there. Normally, this is sufficient proof for all traditional institutions in Germany (tax office, savings bank, insurance companies, etc.). If you want to officially re-certify the marriage in German, you have to go through the whole rat's nest of translations, certifications, and embassies again. I don't fancy that for the time it all takes if it's not necessary.

We like it simple. Barefoot, free, and with a great desire for lots more time together. It's about love.

If you like, you can follow our stories, travels and bad jokes (almost) daily on Instagram: @squirrel.sarah.