A Detroit Art Museum Wedding with Scottish and Samoan Influence

Scotsmen are known to tell a story, but when Ian Craig FaceTimed his dad from the departures terminal of JFK airport in September 2015, his tale was almost too good to believe. While vacationing in Manhattan, he'd met Meki Bracken, a lawyer from Washington, D.C., via Tinder. "It was love at first sight," says Ian, a financial-services executive. "Meki's photos were beautiful, but they didn't do her justice. She looked even better in person." At that date, which was coffee in Bryant Park, things went so well, the next day they took a leap and met in Savannah, Georgia—he was already heading there, and she'd always wanted to visit—for a few more days together. Then they both had traveling to do, so they went separate ways. But now, rather than returning to England, Ian was explaining to his father that he was going to D.C. instead, and wouldn't be home for a while. "I didn't want to leave her," he says.

Two days later, he surprised her in baggage claim as she returned home from her trip. "I had a lot to do, and I was grumpy and tired," Meki says. "And then I heard my name." Ian's grand gesture kicked off a whirlwind romance that continued in York, England, the following week, and on to a series of transatlantic trips. That December, he proposed in front of the fireplace in the unfurnished York home they had recently bought to renovate together. She said yes.

Soon after, planning began, and like everything else in their relationship, there was traveling involved. "My dad was adamant about [having the wedding in] Detroit, which is where I'm from," says Meki. They settled on an August 1, 2016, fête at the Detroit Institute of Arts, a soaring Beaux-Arts building she had visited on school trips as a child. "I fell in love with it when we saw it again," she says. During the ceremony, the couple acknowledged their unlikely journey and thanked the 170 guests who had made the trip from 14 different countries to share their day. "We started the ceremony looking at each other, but then we turned around to face the crowd," says Ian. Adds Meki, "We wanted people to know how touched we were that they came from so far." It was a fitting "ending" to a story that had really only just begun.

Read more about this wedding on Martha Stewart Weddings!

Guests located the city they'd flown in from on a magnetic map, and the corresponding flag revealed their table number.

“The ceremony was held in , named after the murals by Mexican artist Diego Rivera. The altar was modeled on a treelike installation the couple had admired at the Savannah College of Art and Design.”