Courtney & Aaron: Our Wedding Center
COURTNEY & AARON
AUGUST 25th, 2007
Welcome loved ones! We are so happy that you are taking the time to look at our website. We are very much looking forward to our upcoming wedding on August 25th, 2007 and hope to see you there. Until then, this will be our communication hub to help you get to know our story, make travel plans and keep you updated on wedding activities. Please do not hesitate to email or call us. We love you and want you to be a part of our journey.To help you get to know each of us and why we click together, here is a bit of background on each of us:
Courtney’s Story: I am originally from Milwaukee Wisconsin where I spent my first 8 years in suburbia near family, friends and my beloved family cottage, “The Shack” (Those of you who know me well realize the Shack is a bit of an obsession- I have never missed a summer going back to visit. Luckily, Aaron has embraced this tradition.) In 1985 my father needed a change so he sold his cheese stores, bought a vineyard, and drove the family out West, turning me into a country girl.
Since the day I first opened my eyes my mom claims that I was drawn to nature. I grew up going to nature preserves, canoeing and learning about plants and animals from my mother (I am pretty sure I got this nature bug from her). My love for the outdoors has led me on various adventures from 5 week wilderness trips in the Canadian Rockies to four consecutive summers of leading young girls on multi-day canoe and backpacking trips in the Midwest. The mountains in Colorado drew me to Boulder where I obtained a geography degree and a passion for skiing, rock and ice climbing and hiking to the top of really tall mountains. After college I took a brief sabbatical in Tahoe where I taught children how to ski. Today, I mostly satisfy my need for fresh air by hiking the hills throughout the Bay Area.
My second passion is wine. I love everything about it, from harvest to bottle. Growing up, my Father put me and my Brother to work pulling leaves out of grape bins during harvest time. To this day I still get a rush riding on the back of a tractor digging through the grapes. After college, I returned home just before harvest time. I took a job working as a cellar hand at a local winery and that was that- I was hooked! Six harvests, three wineries and thousands of crushed grapes later, I switched from winemaking to sensory science. I am now involved in training people to taste wine and conduct blind wine tastings for research. At home I hold my own wine tastings and food pairings with friends and family. This also marks my third year of making my own Chardonnay with Aaron and my Dad.
Aaron’s Story: I was born in Los Altos in 1974 and stuck around till ’79 when my family relocated to the Pacific Northwest. The Portland area is where I grew up, but I still consider myself a Bay Area native. I grew up in the small town of Vancouver, WA, just across the river from Portland. My house was on the outskirts of town surrounded by a small forest on a dirt road. I went to a wonderful school (Catlin Gabel) in Portland for 11 years, until going off to college. The NW was a great place for me to be outside and fall in love with nature, …and rain.
In college I concentrated on my interests, photography and people. A year at Bennington College in Vermont, and 3 years at Pitzer College. I got really into film and followed my passion back to the Bay Area. Worked as a freelance editor for 3 years before crossing paths with a company called The Orphanage. They asked me to shoot a documentary about a short filmmaker dropping a camera out of an airplane at 30,000 feet. It was this film that took me to several film festivals all around the world: Sundance, New York, Berlin… it was a dream come true. Not only did I get a whirl wind tour of the film industry, but I landed my first full time job at a wonderful company. I was the third employee and am still at the company, now about 160 employees, making films like Superman Returns, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Sin City, and Pirates of the Caribbean 2 to name a few.
Our Story: We first met at a Halloween party at Courtney’s apartment in San Francisco. Aaron’s friend and coworker Luke was hoping to set Aaron up with his cousin Kirsten who was Courtney’s roommate at the time. There were no sparks that evening.
About 6 weeks later, Luke invited Kirsten to his company Christmas party and told her she could bring a guest. Kirsten brought Courtney. Throughout the evening, after discovering that Courtney was single, numerous friends of Aaron’s continually approached her to talk about their “wonderful friend Aaron”. By the end of the night (with the help of a well planted seed, Kirsten’s encouragement and an open bar), Courtney slipped Aaron her number on a bar napkin. The rest is history.
