An Intimate City Wedding in Vancouver, British Columbia

About the couple

Bride: Rennae Thiessen

Groom: Allan Edwards

How they met: “Allan was a captain in the Canadian Forces deployed to Kandahar Airfield as a pharmacist in the Role 3 Trauma Hospital for eight months during 2008 and 2009. The Canadian Forces (CF) was in need of civilian radiologists to assist at the hospital as there was a shortage of radiologists in the CF. I volunteered to go and was stationed at Kandahar Airfield for six weeks in 2009. It was at this trauma hospital in the middle of the desert and a war that Allan and I met, worked together and became friends,” says Rennae.

Engagement story: “We were both providing local summer relief in our respective fields in Cranbrook during July 2010 — myself at the East Kootenay Regional Hospital and Allan at a community pharmacy. On the evening of July 14th 2010 we took our rental Hyundai Accent up a treacherous logging road to the base of Lakit Lookout and began a steep but relatively short 2km hike in the warm summer sun,” explains Rennae. “We arrived at the top with a 360 view of the East Kootenay mountain range behind us and the river valley before us. We chatted with a few people at the top and checked out the ranger station and then sat down to have our dinner of salads, chicken, bread, and wine. With the sun setting in the west Allan asked me to come explore the ridge just a bit beyond where we had eaten. We sat down taking in the sun setting and he popped the question. I said yes and had people at the top take some pictures. We entered the news in the logbook and wandered down the mountain in a surreal state.”