This Cozy Fall Wedding Took Place on the Riverbanks of Asheville, North Carolina

Senior Cole Holloway didn't make the best first impression—he called out "Dibs!" when he spotted sophomore Meghan Higgins in the hallway of their high school in 2009—and she spent weeks avoiding him, until her Meghan's friend snuck Cole her number. For the rest of the year, they had an "on-and-off romance" that finally fizzled when he left for college. They reconnected through a mutual friend seven year later and, with Cole training for the U.S. Air Force in Oklahoma and Meghan finishing college at the University of North Florida, began a three-month long-distance relationship that include spending hours on the phone in the evenings. "It became immediately apparent to both of us that what we just rekindled was serious," says Meghan.

After Meghan graduated, she joined Cole in Klamath Falls, Oregon, where he was stationed for fighter pilot training. In the fall of 2017, the couple received a three-year assignment to Okinawa. A few months before leaving for Japan, Meghan and Cole had "a very romantic talk at a very romantic dinner" in Oregon—and decided to get married before moving. "On October 25, 2017, Cole and I walked from courthouse to lawyer and back in one day and the deed was done," says Meghan. They relocated in November, and spent the next year planning an intimate outdoor celebration for 44 guests at Olivette in Asheville, North Carolina—a destination that reminded them of the spot where they were "paper married" in Oregon.

The date they chose—November 3, 2018—offered slightly chilly temperatures and a stunning display of fall colors along the banks of the French Broad river, where a brief outdoor ceremony was followed by dinner, conversation, and s'mores on an outdoor pavilion. But by then, their celebration had taken on an even greater significance after two life-changing medical diagnoses: In September, Cole's mother, Chrys, found out she had a terminal brain cancer; and, in October, Cole was diagnosed with ALS. He and Meghan chose to keep that news a secret until after the wedding—"to keep that day a positive and sacred memory, untainted by the diagnosis," says Meghan—and to save Chrys from the added stress and heartbreak. Chrys died in December, the day after Cole, now medically discharged from the Air Force, and Meghan returned from Japan.

But despite the tests Meghan and Cole faced in their first year as husband and wife, they're ready for their future together—whatever it may bring—with glad memories of their Asheville celebration which was, says Meghan, "a day bathed in the essence of fall, and an evening filled with meaningful conversations, delicious eats, and the comforts of a warm cabin night in."