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Maren: From ���ϳԹ��� Magazine, this is the ���ϳԹ��� Podcast.

When some people dream of their wedding day, they picture a pristine white gown, or a crisp tux, delicate champagne flutes, maybe a tasteful floral arch, a string quartet. But, for the outside set, there is often another kind of vision. Let's call it a type II wedding.

These gatherings demand a whole lot more from the participants than just an evening in uncomfortable formal wear. followed by a hangover. They offer the tantalizing promise of a once in a lifetime adventure in return, if you can stick it out.

Melissa Johnson: They're like, Oh, there's like a monkey. Like, yeah, cool. Like, that's beautiful. And like, there's a scorpion. That's maybe a snake. Here's like 12 things that could kill you in the next 30 seconds. I'm like, Oh my goodness, what have I done?

These brides are trying to kill us.

Maren: I'm Maren Larson, and today on the show, we're bringing you the story of the most hardcore adventure wedding we've ever heard of. One that took place deep in the Guatemalan jungle, where a frightening creature came in the night to drink the blood of one of the guests.

Melissa: My name is Melissa Johnson and I am 39 years old and I've been to roughly a million weddings.

Maren: Melissa is a writer and a filmmaker. This summer, she published an article in ���ϳԹ��� Magazine about her experience as a guest at her close friend Angela's wedding in 2017.

Melissa: Angela's a dear friend. She's about 10 years younger than me. And she's getting married to her longtime girlfriend, Suley, who I also adore. And they say, Hey, you know, Do you want to come on this adventure destination wedding in Guatemala with us? And I kind of stopped listening at that point. Cause I'm just like, yes.

It's only later that I dig through my memory and like, oh yeah. Actually what Angela said was, you know, we want to have this Super Trek that's really hard and we all barely survive and it bonds us to one another forever. 

Maren: When I reached out to Angela and Suley to confirm this, they were camping in California. Not surprisingly, adventure is a big part of their lives. So, I emailed them my questions and had them record their answers.

Angela: This is Angela Weeks, and I use she and her pronouns. And I'm recording from our campsite in Redwoods National Park.

Suley: And this is Suley Rivera. I also use pronouns she, hers, and yeah, I'm with Angela.

Maren: They agreed that they had always expected their wedding to be a bit of a sufferfest. The couple had met in the army and grew their love through harrowing experiences, so a celebration like this seemed fitting. They first got the idea for their ceremony venue from a couple they met at a hostel in Belize.

Suley: They were telling us like, ‘Oh man, we're so tired. We just got back from this like 15 mile hike in the middle of the Guatemalan jungle.’ And Angela and I both kind of looked at each other like, ‘what is this place?’

Angela: Yeah, and I remember, like, as they were telling us about their journey, they were really wiped out.

They had talked about, you know, walking through knee deep mud and hacking through the jungle with machetes, and one of them got really sick on the journey. But essentially, You know, ignoring all of those facts, what I heard in that conversation was they went on a four day trek into the jungle to a secret city that was completely secluded. I was like, this is straight out of like an Indiana Jones movie. Who wouldn't want to do that? That is epic. 

Suley: And when they left, her and I, we kind of looked at each other, and I think we were both thinking the exact same thing, because we were just like, let's get married there, and it was like an immediate yes.

Maren: But, despite how it may seem, Sule and Angela weren't just a couple of thrill seekers looking for danger for the hell of it. For them, this plan actually felt safer.

Suley: Because of how extremely tough it seemed, and how secluded for us, it just, it made sense that that's where we would want this like super special moment for us because of how hard it would be for, more than, like, just a few people to be there.

Angela: Yeah, it sort of made it to where family that wouldn't be as supportive couldn't really get out there. Um, and we could ensure that we were surrounded by just really supportive people who cared about us, who were sort of like minded as far as, like, adventuring and, um, being with nature and all of that.

And I think it was also symbolic in the fact that, like, you had to journey to get to a pinnacle where you would exchange your vows. Especially because the opportunity to get married Was denied from us for so long. So it just felt, it just felt right in that way.

Maren: For guests like Melissa, it took a little while to absorb the full details of the itinerary.

Melissa: So the plan for the wedding, it's going to be five days, a 60 mile trek on foot into the depths of the Guatemalan rainforest, a very remote area in Northern Guatemala. It's called the park national El Mirador. And the plan is to go to the ruins of this ancient Maya city that was abandoned about 2000 years ago, called El Mirador. And then once we get to the ruins of this ancient, foundational city of civilization, we're going to climb to the top of La Danta, which is a pyramid, one of the largest pyramids in the world, that's only partially excavated. And they're going to get married up there.

Maren: It does sound kind of incredible. If you can make that 60 mile trek through the jungle. And didn't that couple in Belize mention mud and machetes and some kind of mysterious illness? But no matter. The brides rounded up eight of their chosen family and got them to sign on. They also strongly suggested that their guests train for the trip.

Angela: We had encouraged people to train, and so Suley and I trained and I feel like when we went out, the hike was not hard. It was hot, but it wasn't hard for us. And what I didn't expect was that there were so few of our friends who would have taken that seriously.

Maren: Including, unfortunately, Melissa.

Melissa: At this time in my life, I was like, you know, I'm living on Venice Beach and my workouts have kind of devolved into like strolls on Venice Beach and like Sunday morning yoga where you flop around a lot. I'm not in peak shape, shall we say, going into this.

Maren: In addition to not being at her physical best, Melissa had very little experience with jungle environments. She's a mountain person. She had been winter camping, rock climbing, whitewater rafting. She'd even done a 50 day trip with Outward Bound in college. But trekking through a tropical forest? Not so much.

Melissa: I start hiking and I just start having this, this pit in my stomach like what the hell have I gotten myself into you know?

It feels like every 10 minutes. I'm using my hiking pole to like pull these mud pancakes off my boots, that's like five inches thick. Like, how, how am I going to make it through this? And like Angela and Suley are like, ‘it's so hard. It's amazing. It's our dream come true.’ And like, my friends are crazy people.

Maren: What have I done? And that was just the start of it. After the break, things get really, really uncomfortable.

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Maren: Melissa Johnson was more than a dozen miles into the Guatemalan rainforest, following two of her dearest friends, Angela and Sule, to their dream adventure wedding. The trip had barely begun, but already she was getting the impression that she had bitten off more than she could chew.

Melissa: My personal low came on the second night. So I am from Syracuse, New York. And Syracuse, New York, unfortunately, is an epicenter for ticks and Lyme disease. I grew up taking this very seriously.

So I have this in my head before going on the trek. I'm nervous about ticks so I go to this travel doctor and I say, so there's ticks in Guatemala, right? And she's like, Oh yeah, yeah, sure. There's ticks everywhere. 

I said, well, did the ticks in Guatemala have Lyme disease? And she just goes, honey, they got something.

I'm like, Oh, well, what do I do? She's like, ‘Look, there's no hospitals in the jungle, get a really good pair of tweezers and, and fill out this script for doxycycline, which is a very powerful antibiotic. And you just take this pill. That's it. That's, that's, that's the whole treatment, right?

So cut back to like, I'm on. The second night, in the jungle, middle of the night, I can't sleep because it's so hot.

I'm in my underwear in the tent with my tent mate, which I call Tent Dog, her real name is Tara. Tara is the badass soldier lady who I've met like 48 hours in advance. Tara is sleeping like a baby next to me. And I'm just like in a puddle of my own sweat in my underwear in this tent, just, I can't sleep.

And I'm hearing the cicadas. You know, this chorus of cicadas around me and like, wow, you know, will I ever sleep again? Who knows? Maybe I'll just sweat to death here. 

And I feel this nasty, bug bite on my butt cheek. You know, again, I'm laying there in my underwear, right? So easy pickings. I, you know, swatted away, spanked myself, you know, getting rid of this mosquito. And I finally drift off to sleep.

And then I think it's around 4:30, 5 o'clock in the morning. I wake up. And I kind of try to roll over and like maybe I'll try to sleep some more and I feel this like weird heaviness in between my legs.

And I'm like, you know I should just sit up and check this out. So I sit up and I face away from Tent Dog, which you know still sleeping, not a care in the world. And I sort of look between my legs.

I pulled the underwear aside. I'm like what could this be. And I see I see that a tick has bitten my vagina. More specifically, bitten my right labia. And I'm like, and this feeling. It's like my vision like tunneled in and I started to feel nauseous and I was like, oh, like this is a panic attack.

And then I realized like, no one is coming. To save me from this. The only person who can save my vagina is me.

And I snap into focus and I get my flashlight on my phone. I sort of set myself up in, you know, cross legged pose. And I get my, my tweezers and I just dive into surgery. It can tell I'm coming for it.

This little asshole tic starts like diving further and I see his little legs like just burrowing and I'm just like Not today fucker, and Ijust grab it around the sides firmly and pull it out and I put it in this tiny plastic bag and then I smash it over and over again with a rock to make sure that it's dead, and then I dig out the giant antibiotic pill that I brought.

It's like the size of a baguette. It's huge. I have a, I have a tiny bit of water left in my water bottle. So I'm like, I can still, I can still remember it like sort of scratching down the sides of my throat. I'm like, just get it down, just get it down. And then I'm sitting there and I'm sort of trying to collect myself and like slow down my breathing and Tent Dog wakes up just in the best mood.

She's like, good morning. She's had a great night's sleep. I'm like, and I'm looking at her. I was like, I've had a negative life experience. And she's like, well, what happened? And I tell her I was bitten by a tick on the vagina. And I've just removed it. And she just starts laughing. She thinks this is hilarious.

I mean, Tara has been an infantry soldier in the army for years. She's like seen it all. She just thinks it's really funny and I'm just like, I hate you. I think I hate you.

Maren: Melissa emerged from the tent and told the rest of the group what had happened.

Melissa: And this is a group of mostly women and they're looking at me with a lot of compassion. You know, their mouths are like full of breakfast burrito, but also just like, Oh, like this girl is like a little unhinged. Like she's, she's not quite right.

Maren: Angela pulled her aside and told her that she would completely understand if she wanted a bail, that one of the guides could take her back.

Melissa: And I just was like, you know what? Like I really am okay. Like there's nothing more to be done. I might as well keep going. And that's what I did.

Maren: On day three of the trip, the wedding party made it to El Mirador. The 2000 year old city in the jungle.

Melissa: It's only been partially excavated and we're going over these like hills and hummocks and I'm, you know, I'm just thinking these are just, you know, the natural terrain. And one of our guides explains like, no, no, what you're going over is actually like the bones of the city. And the jungle has swallowed El Mirador over all of these thousands of years.

Maren: At the center stands La Danta. One of the largest ancient structures in the world. Its 236 foot summit was where Angela and Suley planned to say their vows. While their guides had been nothing but wonderful, the brides had concealed from them the purpose of the trek. Gay marriage is not legal in Guatemala, and while they had legally obtained their license in California, Suley and Angela didn't want to cause any trouble, for themselves or for their guides.

So they asked if their party could ascend the pyramid alone, for some quiet meditation.

Melissa: We finally get out onto the top of La Danta Pyramid and it's, it's small up there. It's like the size of maybe like a backyard deck, you know, but you're above the canopy. And for the first time you have this appreciation of like in all directions, like this rolling green ocean of foliage.

And I think it's like 1.6 million acres of some of the most biodiverse terrain in the world. And our two brides, you know, they quickly change out of their, you know, stinking, scuzzy hiking shirts into these crisp white shirts like this is their, their wedding attire.

And they kind of straighten their ponytails. And one of the friends has been ordained and she finds a rock to stand on and ties her hair back.

Maren: As Angela and Suley stood on the summit overlooking the jungle, the July sun baked down on them.

Angela: And I remember Suley was like, I'll do anything. I'll even, you know, dance for rain if I need to. And at that moment, the thunder started rolling in. It rained on us. We were able to pull off what was actually quite terrifying, which was two women exchanging vows on top of, of this monumental pyramid just seems otherworldly. 

Maren: For the guests, the ceremony was captivating.

Melissa: I'm so glad I hung in there because. As so often when we take these trips into the wild, you have these super low moments and they're offset by these super amazing transcendent moments. And everyone has this feeling up there that, you know, this is sacred. So it's very quiet, it's very respectful and it's just this hush comes over everyone.

Tara, AKA Tent Dog, she's the ring bearer and she, you know, military perfect posture. She assumes her position and she's got the box with the ring.

And it's so rare in my life, I've had this kind of feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself, not only like this incredible natural landscape and the sense of respect and awe for the Maya civilization that was here.

And then also this respect and awe for my friends. who are pledging their life to one another. And remember, like I'm 39 years old. They're 10 years younger than me, but I had really never experienced a connection or a love or commitment of that nature to another human in the same way I saw with them.

And it just felt magical. I just felt like I was somehow part of their love up there too. It's like, wow, why can't every wedding feel like this? It's like, this is, it's just this feeling of being absorbed in the best possible way.

Maren: And then, the wedding party, jubilant, headed back to camp, where more magic awaited them.

Angela: So actually on our wedding day, we got cake, we, we got a party. It was amazing.

Maren: It was Tara, aka Tent Dog's birthday, and as a surprise, the guides had prepared a celebration, complete with a pineapple upside down cake and a bottle of rum.

Angela: I think it went exactly as I had planned it and maybe even better.

Maren: Angela says there was just one aspect of the trip she hadn't planned for.

Angela: I think what I was unprepared for was our friends like took a beating. And I remember going when we went back to the resort after we got out of the jungle, I sat in our resort room and I just cried because I could not wrap my head around how much love all these people had for us to go on this journey. It just really moved me.

Suley: Yeah, like we were surrounded by the people that we needed to be surrounded with, which was love, love, love. It just worked out perfect and and maybe it was always meant to be that way for us.

Angela: A lot of people say that their wedding was the best day of their lives. I'm not sure if I believe them because a lot of those same people say that they were super stressed out on their wedding day, and they don't remember much of it because they were so busy with planning and making sure that everybody else was happy. so I do, I do wonder. Um, but I can honestly say that was the best day of my life.

Maren: The challenge of the trek was always part of the plan, and it led them to what truly felt like a magical ceremony. That potent combination really did bind more than just the brides to each other.

Angela: Since our wedding, we've gone on many, many adventures with the same group.

So as much as they might, uh, complain about how hard the jungle was, I think they, uh, were addicted to that type of adventure afterwards, because we certainly went on many, many other adventures after that.

Melissa: Bonus side note. I came into this trip. My love life was kind of a mess. But after this experience, I almost felt like I was blessed by being at their wedding. And three months after I ended up meeting the love of my life, Nick, who's now my husband. And it's a pretty special thing when you can have your faith in love restored and feel genuinely inspired and feel generally awed by a place and by people that you love in that place, promising themselves to one another. 

Dammit, if Angela wasn't right.

Maren: Thank you to Melissa Johnson, Angela Weeks, and Suley Rivera for speaking to me for this episode. You can read Melissa's full account of their trek in the July August issue of ���ϳԹ��� Magazine or online at outsideonline.com.

This episode was written and produced by me, Maren Larsen, and edited by Michael Roberts. Music and mixing by Robbie Carver.

Listener, do you have an adventure wedding story you'd like to share? Record it as a voice memo and email it to us at podcast@outsideinc.com. And if you're enjoying this show, leave us a review wherever you listen. Or tell your friends about us over a champagne toast.

The ���ϳԹ��� Podcast is made possible by our ���ϳԹ��� Plus members. Learn more about all the benefits of membership at outsideonline.com/podplus.