Couple marries where they met — in Yukon
Couple charters historic train that once carried gold-seekers into the wilderness
As soon as they were engaged, Kieran O’Donovan and Natalie Nikkel knew they wanted to get married in the Yukon.
After all, it is where the couple first met at a house party during the Dawson City International Short Film Festival in 2015. He is a documentary filmmaker and she is a doctor.
“She took a locum in the Yukon — ostensibly to work,” said Kieran, whose family is from Whitehorse. “But also to try to find a bearded, Yukon man.”
Added Natalie, “A bearded, burly man or a bearded woodsman.”
They’re half-kidding. Kieran — who lived in Edmonton as a young boy and then returned for grad school at the University of Alberta — is bearded ... but not burly. Still, the plan worked.
A week after meeting, the pair bought tickets to Hawaii for a trip together.
A few years of long distance ensued because Kieran was based in England — travelling often to work on wildlife documentaries — and Natalie worked as a doctor in northern or remote communities.
Kieran proposed last November in one of the couple’s favourite cities, Berlin, home to many of their friends and Kieran’s brother. They were standing in the rain, under an umbrella, waiting for a cab.
“He waited 10 minutes before we had to catch a flight to propose,” Natalie said. “I think he was nervous.”
The groom explained that he had wanted to propose in that most special of cities.
“We had been there for a week at that point. We had spent the day biking around — actually doing some touristy things, which we don’t normally do. Any other time of that day would probably have been a better time to propose …
“But if I wanted to propose in Berlin, I had to do it then because I was out of time. The taxi was on its way.”
Although the Yukon was their natural and first choice to get married, Kieran was hesitant to suggest it.
“I didn’t want to assume we’d get married where my family was,” Kieran said. “But as soon as we started telling Nat’s family and friends that we were engaged, their response was, ‘It’s going to be in the Yukon, right!?’”
Added the bride: “Barely any of my friends or family had been there, so everybody was just thrilled to go on an adventure.” And what an adventure it was. Their 180 guests congregated in the territorial capital, Whitehorse, for the wedding week. The couple had organized events leading up to the wedding so that guests could get to know one another and experience the territory’s rugged beauty.
On their wedding day, everyone headed 72 kilometres south of Whitehorse to Carcross, where they boarded a train, the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway.
Kieran and Natalie had chartered the train — once used to transport gold-seekers to the Yukon, it’s now a tourist favourite — to take everyone on the 90-minute journey to Lake Bennett, where the couple said their vows atop a rock with a stunning mountainsand-lake backdrop.
Incorporating the train into their day was very important to the couple.
“There’s no road access. You can only get there by train, by float
plane, by boat or by hiking. It feels so remote, so taking the train out there was this grand adventure,” Natalie said.
“We’re both pretty adventurous people and we’re definitely not static people.
“So, incorporating a whole journey into our wedding day really appealed to us. People seemed to get a kick out of it.”
After the ceremony — performed by Natalie’s brother, Donald (in the Yukon you can pay $50 to get a marriage commissioner licence for a day) — guests noshed on antipasto and homemade hummus prepared by Kieran’s mother, and were able to explore the site.
The train journey home included bubbly toasts and live music, courtesy of Kieran’s musically inclined family.
Their outdoor reception was at a site between Carcross and Whitehorse.
In addition to sewing her own dress (finished the morning of the wedding on the train ride!), the bride made colourful pompoms, which they strung up in the trees alongside twinkling fairy lights.
A delicious dinner, signature cocktails and all-night dancing to tribal, techno beats care of a DJ friend from Berlin ensued.
It was a very organic wedding and so much of what was achieved was achieved by family or friends working together.
It doesn’t get dark for very long on Yukon July nights — dusky for only about one hour — which made it easy for the party to go on in the open air until 5:30 a.m.
The next day, Natalie’s family prepared a Sunday brunch to rejuvenate the revellers.
All in all, their guests — many from across Europe — got great vibes and a true Yukon experience.
“It was a very organic wedding and so much of what was achieved was achieved by family or friends working together. It wasn’t that we paid a hotel ... it was the energy of everyone that created a special, amazing vibe that everyone got into,” Kieran said.
“Because of that buy-in of energy from everybody, it felt like not just a celebration of us and our wedding,” Natalie added.
“It was a celebration of everybody — a celebration of humans, of love, of relationships — not just about us, which was really lovely.”