Bride Hiking in Wedding Dress Amid ‘Mini Kidnapping’ Shocks the Internet

A bride was left beaming for entirely different reasons after climbing a mountain with her groom to exchange vows.

Camille Buttles said Newsweek she first spoke to her husband Robert on the dating app Hinge after noticing a photo of him posing in front of a lake.

“Being an avid adventurer myself, I messaged her asking where the lake was,” she said. “He told me it was in the eastern Sierra Nevada, which he said was one of his favorite places he had been, and coincidentally it was also one of my favorite places in the world. I guess you can say the rest is history.”

According to data compiled by the Pew Research Center in 2020, 30% of American adults have used an online dating site or app to find love. Of this number, 12% said they were married or in a relationship with someone they met through one of these platforms.

Robert and Camille are part of this lucky number. Their relationship blossomed after discovering a shared love of the outdoors during those early conversations on Hinge.

“Eastern Sierra Nevada has been our favorite place as a couple since that first conversation,” Camille said. “Over the years we’ve hiked, camped, hiked, skied/snowboarded extensively up there, and it’s even where my husband proposed.”

So, when planning their wedding, the bride and groom were determined to incorporate the region into the event.

Camille said they originally hoped to get married in California’s Inyo National Forest mountain range. However, the logistics of holding the ceremony there – and getting their guests to join them – proved too much to handle.

“We originally wanted to have a small wedding there, but when the plans didn’t work out, we decided to do a mini-elopement to say our private vows the week before our wedding,” she said. declared.

The resulting hike to their special place was captured on video and through a series of photos taken by photographer Jade Bourdeau-Hernikl, who joined them on the excursion.

A clip showing Camille in a wedding dress alongside Robert in a suit enjoying their special time together in the American desert has been uploaded to TikTok.

As of this writing, the video, shared as camilleexplores, has been viewed over 1.2 million times with viewers stunned at the sight of the happy couple enjoying the great outdoors in their finest outfits. of marriage.

Drink.read.repeat said, “It turns out that when some people mention ‘hiking’ as a hobby on dating sites, they actually mean it” with quesadilla.maria commenting, “Love the bouquet in the pocket of your backpack.”

Lynn.se, meanwhile, confessed they were left “sobbing uncontrollably” over the video while konakafe said, “Hiking is not for me but I love this story!”

Others shared their own stories of finding love online. “I met my husband on a hinge too,” Karain told Bloom. “Almost a year of marriage now.”

Madmaxofalltrades also commented, “My fiancé and I met on Hinge too! Congratulations everyone.”

Yet it was time for Camille and Robert. Although the couple couldn’t get married in the eastern Sierra Nevada, the trip still provided them with the perfect setting to tell each other how they really felt.

“It worked perfectly because we preferred to have our vows taken in a more private setting and that way we were able to do it in a place that meant a lot to us,” Camille said.

A hike in the mountains may not be at the top of every couple’s pre-wedding activity lists, but Camille said they wouldn’t have it any other way and would encourage others to follow their hearts and do what seems natural to them.

“It meant so much to us to be able to say our vows in a place that has such special significance in our history,” she said. “It made the whole event feel extremely authentic and personal, and just about the two of us, what we wanted our wedding experience to be. I wouldn’t change a thing!”