Nikki & Seth met in a dimly lit room, across a small table, under the murals of Ludwig Bemelman, in the hotel bar that bears his name. They got to know each other—their shared interests, and their mutual friends. Past midnight, they decided to walk a few blocks before saying goodnight. As two blocks turned into twenty, they sensed their chemistry (and recognized their propensity for late-night adventures).

That Halloween, they took their first photo together. Seth was a postman (his package, an unopened box from his recent move to New York City) and Nikki was Nancy Sinatra.

In November, they went on a “vacation” from Brooklyn all the way to midtown Manhattan. They stayed in a hotel with points from Nikki’s credit card, ordered breakfast in bed, and visited the New York Public Library’s Picture Collection, where they browsed the library’s archive of magazine clippings and visual ephemera organized by topic in leather folios.

Early in their relationship, Nikki and Seth realized that they both loved elevating special occasions into productions. No project was too ambitious or too painstaking if it meant delighting the other.

For Seth’s birthday, Nikki retraced their steps through New York, compiling pictures, postcards, and mementos that reminded her of their first months together. After explaining the project to the librarians at the NYPL, she convinced them to part with one of their folios so she could present Seth with a “picture collection” of their own.

On Valentine’s Day, Seth decided to recreate a meal from the French bistro Lucien at home (“Chez Seth,” as it read on the handwritten menu). He seared tuna steaks for a traditional salade niçoise, learned how to make perfect double-fried French fries, and brewed espresso for espresso martinis using his temperamental machine. The restaurant later reposted a photo of the spectacle with the caption “when your man can’t afford to take you out on vday,” but Seth secretly loved the recognition.

Over the years, they have traveled the world—Mexico City, southern France, the Rhine region of Germany, Ireland, London, Hong Kong, and Indonesia. Last summer, Seth proposed to Nikki in Switzerland after a formidable hike to the top of a 7,000-foot plateau called Tanzbödeli (“dance floor” in German).

Closer to home, they’ve spent time in California to visit Nikki’s family and in Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico with Seth’s family.

Amid all these adventures, the quiet desert town of Marfa, Texas called to them in a different way. Nikki and her family had been visiting for years. Seth first made the pilgrimage as an architecture student to see the work of Donald Judd in situ. When they went together in the spring of 2023, they realized that Marfa—its art, architecture, landscape, and open sky—felt uniquely theirs.

And because they’ve never been ones to do things halfway, when they knew they wanted to get married, they decided the only way to do it properly would be to invite all of their friends and family to Marfa too.