Supporter Spotlight: Melanie Dunn and Alex Brown
In our upcoming editions, the monthly Alpiner e-newsletter will spotlight dedicated supporters of the Issaquah Alps Trails Club. As part of IATC’s strategic focus on engaging the community through storytelling, we aim to showcase the profound impact of human connections within the Issaquah Alps. This month, we are thrilled to share a heartfelt story by Melanie Dunn and Alex Brown, newlyweds from Issaquah, during a memorable occasion celebrated at Tiger Mountain.
By Melanie Dunn and Alex Brown
On July 6th, we said our vows in a spot that you may have run or walked by recently without ever thinking it could be a wedding venue—the High Point pavilion at the base of Tiger Mountain.
We love Tiger. We love long meditative runs in the forest, chatty hikes with friends, watching our dog Eddie splash in trail puddles, and eating snacks at the top of WT3. Mel's commitment to Tiger runs so deep that she has a topographic map of WT1, 2 & 3 tattooed across her forearm. Alex dabbles in nature photography and is currently piling up extensive footage of the bear cubs being raised in our backyard near Grand Ridge. When we decided to get married, we wanted a ceremony that felt close to our hearts, and we couldn't imagine anything more special than showing our family the magic of Tiger.
We think we're probably the first couple to ever book the pavilion for a wedding ceremony. We were biting our nails because we invited everyone to our wedding in December and we couldn't even request to reserve the pavilion until April 1st—yikes! We logged in that day, jittering and hoping not to get stuck in a Ticketmaster©-like clash with someone else who wanted the pavilion for July 6. (We didn't.)
Anyway, we had the perfect day, and our wedding guests (along with the mosquitos we didn't invite but came anyway) really got to see the forest magic. Our dog Eddie walked Mel down the aisle with her parents, while Alex's parents walked him down the aisle. Leading us were our "park rangers" and "ring bears," nieces and nephews who dressed up for the job and carried signs that read "don't feed the bears," but "do feed the bride". After the "I dos", our guests rang us out with cowbells.
We asked our wedding guests to donate to IATC in lieu of wedding gifts. We were so grateful to see the donations rolling in!
IATC advocated for the conservation of the West Tiger region back in the late 1980s. Without the amazing work by this organization, the trails that we run on every day wouldn't exist—and either would the pavilion where we got married!
We love to see IATC advocating every day to maintain the amazing public lands around us, bring more lands into conservation, restore healthy habitats, and provide a model for community action. We hope the money raised for IATC can make a difference toward those causes!
Thank you IATC!
The Issaquah Alps Trails Club empowers generous donors and volunteers like Mel and Alex to invest in the Issaquah Alps and its habitat.