This August, Lindsay and Ryan Solomon decided to join in with a growing trend for celebrating new marriages in a fun, creative setting – at a music festival. Foregoing the old-hat cliché of luxury hotels and beach resorts, these lifelong music fanatics instead chose to travel all the way to the United Kingdom to spend their post-wedding holiday with the likes of Metallica, The Libertines and Mumford & Sons in a field at Reading Festival for their biggest ever music festival experience.

And just to make the experience even more incredible, Ryan managed to win himself back the cost of their Reading Festival 2015 trip, courtesy of our summer competition and the photo below. We got in touch with them to share their story…



Music, the food of love

Music has been a huge part of our relationship. Lindsay bought me tickets to my favorite band, Megadeth, on their Gigantour with Motörhead. We also went to Uproar Festival 2013, where the headliner was Alice in Chains. Although we both love AIC, the guys in Walking Papers stole the show.

Ryan went to Mayhem Fest and saw Rob Zombie put on a show that rivalled Iron Maiden for the most intense, over the top, exciting show I have ever seen. Rob rode a giant robot, showed insane and grotesque monstrosities on the screens surrounding him, and got the entire crowd to sing along to new tracks from his recent album.

Reading Festival was a totally new and wild experience for us both because we had never been to a multi-day festival so jam-packed with performers. Lindsay loves metal and rock, but also has a deep appreciation for the pop and hip-hop of artists like Charlie XCX and Kendrick Lamar. She went nuts when he came on, but our main love was Metallica. Our first dance at our wedding was to Nothing Else Matters, so it was incredible seeing our first dance performed live. We even got to do a little waltz.



The Proposal

I was initially supposed to propose on top of the Mohonk Mountain House near our university, SUNY New Paltz. I was planning on getting food from the place where we had our first date, renting a lakeside cabin to stay the night before, and popping the question at the very top of the stone tower that juts out from the highest point on the mountain. However, you know what they say about the best laid plans. It leaked before I had the chance to follow through with my plan, and I wound up taking her to a popular beach near our house and proposing at sunset to throw her off.

As I proposed, a stage show a little way down the beach started introducing knock-off wrestlers you could meet at the show. As I asked Lindsay to spend the rest of her life with me, about 200 yards away a very abrasive gentleman got on the microphone and introduced himself, loudly, as the "MANCRUSHER". It was a night I know we will never forget. And we still took the mini vacation at the lakeside cabin and had food from the place on our first date, so it wasn't that bad at all.



The Wedding

We got married at an aquarium in Riverhead, Long Island, on April 24th 2015. It was a lot colder than we would have liked but the aquarium had heaters and wind blockers in place to keep everyone happy on our big day. What was great about having our wedding at an aquarium was that it required zero decorations because the fish are so beautiful so it saved us a lot of work. Lindsay was the most beautiful girl in the world on the day and we got some gorgeous pictures in a butterfly enclosure as well as some in front of sharks, manta rays, and all manner of sea creatures.



The Honeymoon: Paris, London… and Reading Festival

Lindsay brought up the idea of going to a festival a few months before our wedding. She stumbled upon the Festicket website and made a pitch about how easy it would be if we booked the hotel and festival package and not have to worry about many details. Since we were being run ragged planning our wedding it seemed like a perfect deal with no added work. We booked a travel agent to figure out our travel accommodations and she recommended London and Paris as side trips. Since Ryan is a world history teacher in America he jumped at the idea of being able to visit so much history of the world.

The festival itself was incredible. Seeing Against Me! from the side of the stage was such a great experience. Lindsay and I were the only two up there for the beginning of the show so we screamed our heads off at the band and certainly got Laura Jane Grace's attention (although the "I think those two are crazy" kind of attention). Their set was electric and really capped a great 3 days of music for us both.



More festival trips to come?

We are certainly planning more festival trips in the future and hope to make Reading happen again in the next 5 years. We also are talking about some stateside festivals in Coachella and The Governors Ball. Having experienced one festival we now have an itch to see many more. Reading was definitely the perfect gateway festival.

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