A lasting love story
THE ALESSONDRA ECKSTROM & BRIAN RICHARDSON WEDDING
A
STORY BY MARILYN GILBAUGH • PHOTOS BY MAYA DOOLEY
lessondra (Allie) Eckstrom
is 26 years old and Brian
Richardson, 27. Both love
old things, Victorian things
and family things with a long
history together of all three.
Their courtship began (kind
of) when mutual friends introduced them during their
freshman year at Linfield College in McMinnville.
“Brian told me later that he had picked me out of a
crowd, thinking ‘that girl is beautiful’ but not seeking me
out. I mean who’s not going to like hearing that!” Allie
said. “Six years of exclusive Allie and Brian
4 | RIVER & SEA WEDDINGS 2016
togetherness followed. I took him home to Manzanita. My
family loved him. He took me to Gig Harbor, Washington,
to meet his family. I loved them. We graduated from
Linfield, and after college I got a nursing job in
Washington. Brian stayed in Oregon working in the wine
business. Two years apart was too much. Brian got a job
in Washington; we were together again, but discovered
we missed Oregon. Back we came. Through it all, we
were always a couple and talked about getting married
someday, but it was always that ‘someday’ in our future,”
Allie added.
That someday got closer as these two avid hikers,
along with Brian’s parents and sister, were making their
annual climb up central Oregon’s Smith Rock. It was a
scathingly hot day and Allie was begging off the climb.
After much urging from Brian’s family, she acquiesced.
Reaching the top of the mountain, they paused on a
lookout encompassing the valley. Brian loves scavenging
old locations for antique bottles. He had slyly placed one
of his finds, a special one that he knew Allie loved, in the
loose rocks at the top of their perch.
He asked Allie what she saw. What she saw was a
bottle with a note in it. She picked it up, read Brian’s
request to be his wife and found him on bended knee.
While he popped the question, Allie accepted, and his
family from afar shared photos of the happy event. >>