#lanternfest2015

Every happily ever after starts at the beginning, this is our story. My girlfriend is a huge Disney nerd, especially when it comes to Tangled. One of her biggest dreams has always been going to a lantern festival dressed in full Rapunzel and Flynn Rider cosplay. This is something we had been planning to do for a while. Unfortunately due to time and money, we had never gotten around to it.

A couple months ago I received word that my job would be taking me overseas. That meant that I would be leaving in February of 2016 and wouldn’t return till March of 2017. My girlfriend wanted to travel with me, but due to her studies she would be unable to join me on this venture.

With the clock set and the time steadily ticking down before I had to leave I decided to put a plan into motion. I did a little research and found out that there was a lantern festival up in Fernley Nevada, roughly an 8 hour drive away. So I reached out to one of my close friends @yorkinabox, who also happens to be an amazing photographer, and asked him to help with my mischievous plot.

We wasted no time in acquiring tickets for the event and rooms at a nearby hotel. The good news was that the festival was only a month away! The bad news was that the festival was only a month away, allow me to explain. In my girlfriends vision of the perfect moment, she wanted to be completely dressed in screen accurate cosplay. With only a month before the festival there was no way we could possibly get the cosplays together by then. As an alternative I decided that we should Disneybound as the characters instead.

Now it was time for the tricky part. How to get my girlfriend to take the days off and pack her Rapunzel Disneybound without tipping her off that we were going to a lantern festival. Between the two of us, York and I convinced her that we were going to an “undisclosed” location up North for the weekend to do and Tangled Disneybound photo shoot. My girlfriend begrudgingly agreed, but insisted that she make her own dress and wig to go with her Rapunzel Disneybound.

Several weeks later after much anticipation and preparation, we all piled into the car and began our daring adventure! Along the way up we made frequent stops to sample the hole in the wall speciality shops. This resulted in finding some amazing beef jerky, some of the best honey I have ever had, BBQ the likes of which I have never before tasted, and the most elaborate bakery I have ever stepped into. Needless to say there was never a dull moment. That evening we made it safely to the hotel and promptly passed out.