How We Met
We met the old-fashioned way. Hinge. A little un-hinged. March 2022. Our first date lasted all day — wandering through Pike Place Market and the Chihuly Garden and Glass. We took our first (of many) portraits together at Marnin Saylor. At some point, one of us wondered, "wouldn't it be amazing to live here?" It turned out to be foreshadowing.
Our second date was a trip to Orcas Island. Ashton packed the car full of camping gear, Dale (who’s ever-committed to never owning a car) took a seaplane. We saw otters, bald eagles, murmurations of swallows, cool trees. Played cribbage by the campfire. A morning windstorm cancelled Dale’s seaplane home — so Ashton had to take Dale back to Seattle the slow way. Turns out, Dale had planned a surprise flight with Ashton, so he wasn’t the only one enjoying that part of the adventure — but it was not to be. Not that day anyway.
“I owe you a seaplane flight.”
Something clicked. We knew there’d be many more adventures. We poked around the map of seaplane destinations and noticed one way up north called Princess Louisa Inlet. “One day”, we said that second date, “we will fly there”.
From there came many dates, poems, camping trips, drives between Bellingham and Seattle — until eventually Ashton made the move to the Emerald City.
What we found in each other, beyond the obvious things, was a shared instinct for paying attention. To the small details of a place. To the quiet of being outside together. To other people's love — we have spent a lot of happy hours celebrating couples through Wilderpines. Washington State Ferries. Old-growth trees. Canoe trips. Fire lookouts. Pike Place on a Tuesday morning, a nice warm beverage, sharing poetry, dreaming and scheming places to go. Playing house. Building a studio together in the heart of Pioneer Square, Present & Pine, which evolved into the place we now call home on the Seattle waterfront.
This is what orients us.
The Proposal + Plan
September 9, 2023
On a birthday trip back to Orcas Island (via seaplane), Ashton popped the question!
A few weeks later, as we were planning the grand opening of our studio, we started to formulate a plan — our parents were in town, meeting for the first time. Our grand opening party felt just as much like an engagement party. So, we figured:
Let’s get married. (Better yet — let’s elope.)
A Surprise Ceremony
October 1, 2023
We planned a “family outing” at the Chihuly Garden and Glass, one of the stops on our first date — a spot we sat and talked for hours and maybe started to fall in love.
We invited our good friend Tess to be our officiant, and right in the grand atrium we had a surprise “guerilla-style” ceremony. I don’t think our parents expected an invitation as they knew we would elope, and it meant the world to all of us that we could include them in this special moment.
That day, we got married in the eyes of the government and our parents, ate a mediocre cupcake on the top of the Space Needle, then held a reception at our own little wedding venue!
Princess Louisa Inlet was still on our minds — but then we started another very real adventure of buying a condo on the Seattle waterfront, shared finances, joint taxes, adopting a kitten, and the ongoing, worthwhile project of figuring out how to share a life gracefully. A work in progress. La Bella Vita.
Now, four years into building something together, we are ready to head somewhere wild and have our own adventure. This time we get to do it for ourselves.
Inside Passage Adventures
A Sunshine Coast Elopement
June 4, 2026
Fly via seaplane from Lake Washington, Seattle to Egmont, BC
Stay at the West Coast Wilderness Lodge
Seaplane to Princess Louisa Inlet
Vows in front of Chatterbox Falls
Jet ski adventure and sunset kayak
Photography by Henry Tieu
An Alaskan Honeymoon
June 2026
Fly from Vancouver to Sitka
Stay in a remote, boat-in island cabin off Sitka
National Geographic Lindblad Expedition cruise from Sitka to Juneau, aboard the Sea Lion
Fly fishing, wildlife viewing, Zodiac boating, kayaking, paddleboarding
Campervan road trip in Juneau & Mendenhall Glacier explorations
Helicopter & dog sled adventure with NorthStar Trekking in Juneau
Fly home to Seattle!
Support Us
If you would like to support our adventures along the Inside Passage and building a life together, here is our adventure fund:
Or if you would like to send us nice words:
Ashton & Dale Campbell
1119 1st Ave, Apt 315
Seattle, WA 98101
“the rules"
time runs differently here. gravity is a voluntary agreement. we drink in nectars of the sea & each other for endless timeless fleeting whiles. take off your shoes. hang your coat. do stay a while.
