On a recent Sunday afternoon, Matt Price and Stefanie Maser hopped on a loaded Raft One paddling outfitter bus and headed toward the Ocoee River. Price, a local raft guide, had made the trip countless times for more than a decade, but this trip didn’t involve leading eager visitors through the river’s rapids. This trip was about him and his fiancée.
Price paired khaki shorts with a short-sleeved, button-down shirt; Maser wore a white, knee-length dress. It was their wedding day.
A short time later, they would be married in front of about a dozen friends and families aboard three river rafts.
The couple met at a brewery in Park City, Utah, where the two work during ski season, and began to date.
“We met eyes there, and it turned into this,” Price said.
For them, a wedding on a raft made sense. They spend part of the year working on the Ocoee River, where he is a raft guide and she does desk work for Raft One. During winter, they migrate to Utah for ski season to lead lessons.
They were engaged April 20 on a sunset cruise and began talking about a small wedding scheduled later in the year. Maser was not a girl who grew up dreaming of an elaborate wedding, she said. She just wanted it to be small and wasn’t worried about anything extravagant.
“My sister forced me to paint my nails,” she said.
It was booked for Aug. 12 and coincided with her sister and mother’s anniversaries, the 11th and 13th, respectively. Price wanted to incorporate water, so they came up with a plan – but they didn’t tell everyone what was happening.
“We gave them minimal information up to the final day,” he said. “We told them to just be ready to show up and do what we need. ‘Just trust us. Some way, somehow, we’re going to get married by the end of this.'”
The couple traveled to Chilhowee Overlook for photos before loading the bus and heading to the river for the ceremony.
There they linked two rafts and Maser walked down a path with her father to an awaiting raft that took them the makeshift ceremony.
“It was pretty cool,” said friend Burt White, who officiated the wedding in a blue flamingo sport coat with his life jacket underneath. “They both knew they wanted it to be real small, just parents and a sibling each, basically.”
The wedding culminated with a celebratory plunge.
“I don’t do water … ,” Maser said. “I barely float, and he somehow convinced me to jump in after.”
Price and Maser are finishing the rafting season before taking a delayed honeymoon to Costa Rica this fall ahead of Utah’s ski season.
Contact staff writer Mark Pace at mpace@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6659. Follow him on Twitter @themarkpace and on Facebook at ChattanoogaOutdoorsTFP.