THE BRIDE
Kassidy Mefford was born and raised in Wyoming by Debra and Gary Mefford. She graduated with honors with a BA in Photography and Motion Picture from Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA. She left a budding career in Wedding Photography to move to Central America on a whim. She was in search of a simpler lifestyle, more like how she was raised, and inspired to learn Spanish, salsa dance and a new culture. Kassidy is now the proud owner and Operator of Dale Dagger Surf Lodge in Playa Gigante, Nicaragua and just started a non-profit foundation empowering the women of the village. She also loves chocolate cake, dancing, kitty cats, and corn dogs.

 

 

THE GROOM
Benjamin Love grew up all over the world in an Army family to Peggy and Jim Love, and spent his high school career in Falls Church, Virginia. Ben became infatuated with the West after spending summers fly fishing with his grandfather in Montana. He followed his dream to Colorado where he studied Anthropology at Western State in Gunnison, and pioneered and documented groundbreaking experiences with the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico.
He pursued his fascination with culture by picking up and moving to Nicaragua where he started a string of successful restaurants. Ben is now the proud owner and operator of Dale Dagger Surf Lodge in Playa Gigante, Nicaragua and Chele Palmado's Rum shack & Grill and is starting a construction business in the area. He also loves cooking, smirnoff ice, dogs made of cheese and hot sauce.

 

 

HOW THEY MET
Ben and Kassidy met in Nicaragua a year before they started dating after a friend, Chanelle, had visited Ben's bar in Granada and invited him to the village where she and Kassidy lived. Ben was owner and operator of a bar/restaurant in nearby Granada and Kassidy was running the surf camp at the time. Two young people running businesses in a minorly pioneered third world country was enough to spark interest, and the obvious chemistry and attraction was enough to keep them unforgettable to each other as time went on. Kassidy was impressed that he was running a business in Nicaragua too and seemed to have it all together. Ben remembers meeting his dream girl who had his dream job in his dream surfing town and to this day can remember what she was wearing in perfect detail. Ben returned to the village a year later to start a new restaurant venture and saw Kassidy on the first night. In typical Ben fashion, he set out to get all that he desired, and Kassidy happily followed suite. In their first dance together at Ben's second restaurant opening, Chanelle, the person who introduced them, said it looked as though they had been dancing together for years.

 

THE PROPOSAL
Quickly into their relationship, Kassidy and Ben moved into together and bought Ben's dream business that Kassidy had been operating. The two of them formed an unbreakable team, compromising and troubleshooting,working fourteen hour days side by side in a village with no infrastructure, trying to run a first world business in a third world country. They would eventually bring the Lodge and Tour operation to new heights as arguably the best surf camp in all of Nicaragua. Six months in, they took in Kevin, a thirteen year old Nicaraguan boy that Kassidy had been mentoring for two years. Kevin disturbingly went through his tough teenage years under Ben and Kassidy's guidance, causing the two to have some seriously good practice for the latter years. After a year and a half of dating, Ben popped the question on a routine hike to the top of the hill behind their house that has a pristine view of the village bay. He made the point that if they could accomplish all these things, working side by side together, in a crazy third world country with so much adversity, than they could do anything. He couldn't imagine his life without her, he said, and gave her a stunning ring worth more than anything the two of them have ever had, combined, with the diamonds hailing from his grandmother. Kassidy, obviously, accepted.

 

THE WEDDING VENUE
Kassidy chose the Painter Outpost as the wedding location because of the special role that the Sunlight Basin has played in her and her family's life. Her father grew up there, hunting and exploring with his dad, and Kassidy's parents took her and her brother to that part of the mountains every weekend as a child.
Those mountains are her home and also where her brother's lovely spirit lives on... a beautiful place that she and Ben wanted to share with the people closest to them.