'What's a girl like me doing in a place like this?" was the thought that flitted through Nancy Lau's mind as, numb, drenched and exhausted, she and boyfriend Jeremy Tamm forged the slithery slopes of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. At 6,288 feet, the inhospitable peak is reputed to have the world's worst weather and winds -- and a trail marked with memorials. So for Ms. Lau, a cosmopolitan Toronto native, the ascent was tough.
"Before I met Jeremy, my only experience with the outdoors was hailing a cab on King Street," she says.
The pair became painfully aware that the rosy view that had seduced them as they motored a paved road to the peak a few years earlier was an illusion. On this hiking trip, in late June of 2003, they encountered a harshly different reality. "We were expecting it to be like the Bruce Trail, dirt and some boulders, but the whole thing is rock and steep. You are stepping up boulder after boulder," Ms. Lau says.
"It was 30 degrees at the base, beautiful, sunny," Mr. Tamm adds. "But it started raining, we hit clouds and at the top it was four degrees."
His idyllic vision of conquering the mountain and presenting a ring dimmed, until a bedraggled Ms. Lau plunked herself down on an outcropping.
Seizing the moment, the deflated Mr. Tamm rallied. "This is the first place we visited together . . . and it has been a long journey to get back," he told Ms. Lau, and despite her desultory staccato responses of "yes . . . yes," he persevered and proffered the ring. Suddenly, in a spectacular tour de force, a revivified Ms. Lau dynamited to the summit and dashed down the mountain to call her parents, with Mr. Tamm in dogged pursuit.
It was the Canada Day long weekend, and her diamond, a Canadian stone, was especially meaningful to her. "It's really significant that I am first-generation Canadian, and it's symbolic that something I'm going to wear all the time comes from my birthplace," Ms. Lau says.
Equally important was the fact that it wasn't a "blood diamond." "I wanted it to come from a place where I knew nobody was going to die because of it," she says.
Happenstance brought the two together in June, 2000, when Mr. Tamm, now 32, joined the IT firm that employed Ms. Lau, a civil engineer. She offered up her PowerPoint savvy to help sharpen a presentation he was doing, and after a quick bite that turned into a four-hour conversation, their working alliance evolved into a starry liaison.
The outdoorsy Mr. Tamm, an avid snowboarder, sailboarder, mountain biker and climber, soon realized his interests differed from those of the sedentary Ms. Lau. But by Christmas, confident she was made of stern stuff, "and she'd persevere," he outfitted Ms. Lau for powdery slopes.
"Before I met Nancy, I was a committed bachelor," Mr. Tamm says, noting, "She became a constant companion and it became important to share my life with her."
"I took a couple of lessons, went to Blue Mountain [near Collingwood, Ont.] and had just learned to carve [turn]when he took me to Banff," she says. "I was totally intimidated. Being out West is a big deal for a snowboarder and I wanted him to embrace his environment, not babysit me."
Mr. Tamm, however, recalls with a laugh that when he careered black diamond runs for entire days, leaving her behind to tackle the easier green runs, "there was some serious pouting."
The venturesome Ms. Lau has since taken on another challenge, switching careers to pursue a chartered accountant designation. "Being my age, 33, there is always that conundrum: It's too late, I've got to start over, and will be taking a five-year hit. But in the end I know it will be worth it."
Mr. Tamm, meanwhile, has moved on to a position as senior sales specialist with Telus.
At Vaughan Estate on Sept. 5, the couple recited vows, modified from Rev. Otto Seegers's template. Attendants rewrote tradition in the recessional by following the newlyweds "in single file as we appreciate each one as an individual," Ms. Lau explains. In lieu of wedding favours, a donation was made to the Jenny Lau Memorial Award, established when the bride's younger sister died suddenly of meningitis in 1996 while a student at the University of Toronto. The award is presented annually to a graduate of outstanding character in occupational therapy, Jenny's discipline.
"I miss Jenny deeply. My only wish is that she could have known Jeremy," Ms. Lau says.
"I loved our wedding. I could relive that day, every day for the rest of my life."
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