Engaged Couple Walks 2500 Miles To Their Wedding

An engaged couple from Michigan plans a long hike to prepare for marriage.

couple walking on hill together Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock
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Would you walk 2,500 miles to your wedding if you thought it would better prepare you for marriage? 

One engaged couple from Michigan was actually planning to do just that: go on a pre-nuptial, cross-country hike.

In a 2011 interview, Joseph Crist and Laura Brunett laid out their route: starting in April 2011, they were planning to walk from their home in Canton, across the plains, over the Rockies, and across the desert, to get to Lake Mead to be married. They wanted to reach Vegas by September.

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Their reasoning? If they can survive this walk across the country together, then they can take on any challenge as they walk through life together.

"If we can't handle this, then we probably really shouldn't be getting married," Brunett said. Finishing his fiancee's sentence, Crist added, "This is the test to see where two paths become one."

When asked who on Earth would trek 2,500 miles to tie the knot, Crist responded, "Only crazy people do that. And we're extremely crazy."

And when asked who exactly came up with this idea, Crist admitted that it was him, adding, "I guess I will. I had told her this idea I had about walking to see my friend, and she thought it was a really good idea. But he moved back to Dearborn, and we still want to do a walk, so we decided why don't we just walk to L.A. and see two other friends we have there?

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And I was thinking about, you know, how can we get married on the way, and there's Vegas. So we decided to get married in Vegas. I honestly didn't think she would ever think that was a good idea at all. It was just my imagination going wild."

However, they both said that they thought it would be romantic to walk together all that way. Brunett also confirmed that she would not be getting married in her hiking boots and was going to have a dress sent ahead for the big day.

While it may seem zany to others, the then-24-year-old "free spirits" seemed to be on the same page about their journey, even when it came to personal hygiene.

They were so dedicated to this pre-wedding walk that they realized they were going to have to make sacrifices. Big sacrifices.

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The couple admitted that showering may become a distant memory, and hair will probably reach high levels of bothersome, so they decided to get matching 'dos for the trip: Shaved heads.

"I'm shaving my head, she's shaving her head," Crist said. Brunett elaborated: "All sanitary, the easiest way to deal with things. We're not going to be showering as frequently as we do now."

The skeptical interviewer broke in to ask the bride-to-be, again, if she was really going to shave her head before her big day.

Brunett's response? An emphatic "Yeah." Talk about commitment.

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The couple reportedly didn't end up completing the entire trip on foot, but they did make it to their nuptials on time.  Well, as Emerson famously said, "It's not about the destination, it's about the journey." 

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Jenna Birch is a freelance writer whose work has been featured in publications like Girls' Life Magazine, MSN Glo, The Grindstone, AND Magazine, Front Row View, and Wetpaint.com.