Brandon Taylor Hupp has long been drawn to the spooky and macabre. Tim Burton has always been an artistic inspiration, and he considers the dark and moody to be romantic. When he met Lyle Andrew Shearer, who shared his predilections, they knew they might be a match.
And so it was on Halloween that the couple eloped in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest near Snoqualmie Pass, Wash., with foggy mountains as the backdrop and lanterns and gothic umbrellas set up for décor.
They chose Halloween for its origins: For Celtic pagans, Halloween was the eve of Samhain, a day they believed the dead could communicate with the living.
Mr. Shearer’s brother and best friend both died in 2007, and Mr. Shearer has often expressed to Mr. Hupp that he wishes they were alive to meet him. The couple felt that if they got married on Halloween, then perhaps the loved ones they had lost might be with them in spirit.
“In addition, if one of us ever died, maybe being married on Halloween would allow whomever went first the opportunity to come back and visit on our wedding night,” Mr. Hupp said. “A bit morbid, but something we find romantic.”
The couple first met in June 2018 at Tracks, a nightclub in Denver, where they both lived at the time, the day before the city’s Pride parade.
Who approached whom? “That’s fuzzy,” Mr. Hupp said. Mr. Shearer added, “We’ll just say it was a mutual gravitation.” They went back to Mr. Shearer’s apartment that night, and when they woke up the next morning, each thought there could be something more between them.
“Lyle has this sweetness about him,” Mr. Hupp said. Together, they watched lots of cult classic, campy and horror movies.
“I always kind of felt misunderstood,” said Mr. Hupp, who grew up expressing himself by painting and writing poems. “When I met Lyle, it was kind of like a perfect pairing.” They enjoyed wearing black and other dark colors together. Mr. Shearer, who was still dealing with his grief, said he found comfort in Mr. Hupp’s company.
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“It’s OK to be sad,” Mr. Hupp said. “Sometimes life deals you a bad hand, and still being able to find love or happiness in those moments is something that I think we’re both able to do.”
In April 2020, Mr. Shearer moved into Mr. Hupp’s apartment in Denver. After living on Manhattan’s Lower East Side for a couple of years, they moved to Bellevue, Wash., in March.
In September 2023, Mr. Shearer proposed while vacationing at a cabin near Ridgefield, Conn., by serving Mr. Hupp a snack tray embellished with rose petals and an emerald cut diamond ring.
Mr. Hupp, 34, is a creative project manager at Stanley 1913, the company behind the social-media-famous water bottles. He graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in art history.
Mr. Shearer, 36, a software engineer at Travefy, a communication software company, graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering.
On Oct. 31, the couple were married by Kate Faoro Wright, their wedding planner who was previously ordained by the Universal Life Church. Mr. Shearer and Mr. Hupp hiked on a trail for a mile, changed out of their hiking books and into their Hermès boots and Doc Marten Chelsea boots, respectively, and exchanged vows and rings. A friend from New Jersey served as a witness.
For the reception, held on Nov. 2, the couple hosted a masquerade ball-slash-Halloween party with 33 friends at their Bellevue house, which was decorated with floating candles, dark florals and branches they had broken off a tree in their backyard to emulate a haunted witch cabin in the woods, Mr. Hupp said. They constructed five-pointed stick figure concoctions, a symbol in the horror movie “The Blair Witch Project,” and hung them on their porch, which was also decorated with pumpkins and a life-size witch.
Mr. Hupp and Mr. Shearer, dressed in capes and masks, surprised their friends with the news that they had gotten married, and then they participated in a handfasting ceremony. Ms. Wright tied a silk tie around their hands, as a physical representation of their bond, and they repeated a few phrases.
A friend of the couple, Alex Munday, made signature cocktails like “the Scarlet Witch,” a cranberry apple margarita, and “the Black Magic,” a Manhattan made with mezcal. The cake topper for their chocolate peanut butter wedding cake was two skeletons holding each other in an embrace. Until death do they part — and maybe not even then.
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