Harris & Miles

Occupations Harris is a design teacher and Miles is a school psychologist

Wedding date April 15, 2023

Number of Attendees 150

Number of Attendants 17

How You Met Miles and I met by happenstance through our jobs. Miles is a crisis responder for the city school system and I’m a teacher. When a tragedy occurred at my school, Miles was the school psychologist who came to support our students. When he arrived, I took him on a tour of the school and stood with him through a powerful vigil and party the students held. In the next few days after the event, he arranged for the students to have a family meal and got them all food for a celebration together.

Three years later, the two of us matched on Tinder. When we got to our first date, I said to him, “So, I don’t want to talk about the event, itself, that happened, but am I right: aren’t you the guy?” And he said, “Yeah, I’m the guy.”

As it turns out, we’re both very weird and funny people who love games and love building friendships and community, so it was pretty instantaneous, and we knew within a date or two that we were about one another. Over the course of our relationship, we went through several challenges, from a major eye surgery to the COVID pandemic, to Harris coming out to Miles as nonbinary. With each new hurdle, we handled them with grace and love for one another.

The Engagement Miles took Harris to Storm King, a stunning sculpture park nestled in the Hudson Valley, on their way to what Harris thought would be their two-year anniversary celebration. While the act had been suspected on the part of Harris for weeks, the day of was a hilarious mix of magic, nerves, gorgeous views and awkward jokes. Miles and Harris traversed a large field on the grounds, passing enormous sculptures in near silence (a feat to those that know Miles is quite unusual). Harris, looking to simultaneously ease tension and mess with their soon-to-be-fiancés head, decided to take up a line of conversation about the goose poop covering the ground. As they got closer and closer to their destination (nestled between Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Serra), they prattled on and on about tiny ghost poops that some ethereal phantom had littered all over beneath their feet.

Finally, Miles led Harris over to a hillside and offered to sit on the ground beside them. He brought out a package which he said was an “anniversary gift.” It was a beautiful, ornate wooden box. From inside, he pulled out a set of five tarot cards, saying he was going to give Harris an anniversary tarot reading, but that it couldn’t be done with just any cards. One by one, Miles laid out the cards and read aloud to Harris a beautiful future he’d written for them. Each card was carefully illustrated and contained hints of their story together. Finally, Miles pulled out the “Four of Wands” picturing the couple walking out from a celebration together. He asked Harris to stand while he bent on one knee, then proposed. Harris fervently replied, “FUCK YES!”

Wedding Design Inspiration We both love optical art and have a shared love of music (Miles being a drummer and producer). Our inspiration for our wedding was trippy psychedelic videos, like marbled ink colors on water blending together. Our wedding was all about color color COLOR!

What Was Unique and Special About Your Wedding Day The focus, which was clear to everyone there, was about loving the community we’re in. At the end of our wedding, all the guests got together in a huge circle as our DJ Trillnatured played Akron Family’s “Love in Simple.” The guests crooned out the lyrics repeatedly, “don’t be afraid, it’s only love,” and “love is simple.”

We also commemorated several friends and family members who have passed on, including Harris’ would-be Best Man: Jeremy Pope who passed away in 2017. Love was incredible apparent to everyone in the room.

Favorite Details Our chuppah was assembled with the help of many of our friends on days leading up to the wedding where we wove together brightly colored streamers. We honored our interfaith marriage as well as Miles’ Jewish culture with several traditions, from our ketubah, to our chuppah, to our dear friend, Marissa, performing a blessing spell over our wedding and asking the guests to pass around a piece of selenite to imbibe it with good energy and love for the couple. Bashan made us an INCREDIBLE pride balloon wedding arch and surprised us by embedding rainbow roses all throughout the arch.

Most Unexpected Event On Your Wedding Day Family will try to help with everything even when they shouldn’t. You may occasionally find them try to manage situations and it’s good to have a few people in the bridal party or events team remind them to just relax and enjoy themselves.

Piece of Advice Pick vendors you love. We picked some of our favorite people in the city. Bashan McLeod, of EventBay, is the friend of one of Harris’ bridesmaids. Trillnatured is a dear friend to Harris. Our photographer Ana is a treasured friend of Harris (and was also friends with Jeremy.) Mya from Codetta Bakeshop is a favorite of both Miles and Harris. Ephrem from Ekiben is just awesome and we knew him to be a really great person. We felt very held and loved by all these people and it made it fun to plan.

Beauty Bridal hair cut/color by Josh Powell of Cultivate Salon and day-of-styling by Danielle of Fringe Caterer Ekiben Cupcakes Codetta Bakes Floral Design Pom pom flowers crafted by Harris and their bridespeople Honeymoon Japan Invitations Designed by Miles and Harris Location The Garage at R House Music Trillnatured Officiant Marissa Lanterman Photographers Ana Tantaros of Side A Photography and Taylor Mihaljevic of Taylor Ann Photography Wedding Outfits White jumpsuit by Anthropologie and black jumpsuit by Zhivago; shoes by Kurt Geiger and Betsey Johnson, and green gloves by Fashion Brand Co. The groom’s suit was Indochino, shirt Descendant of Thieves, glasses by Theo, shoes by Dr. Martens, and belt by Carhartt. Bolo ties for all groom’s people and the groom by Stellarium Jewelry and Sailor Scout bridal party wands by Pullen3DPrinting on Etsy. Wedding Planner Bashan McLeod of EventBay