Hélène & Mike

There’s beauty in every soul.

How did you get to know each other?

We met at a work conference in Bonn, Germany, where we were presenting some of our scientific research – Mike and I chatted a lot about work and the places we were living in (UK and Netherlands), and he eventually asked for my work email address. The rest is history!

How did the proposal go?

We got engaged in Indonesia, whilst hiking Mount Rinjani on the island of Lombok. It was a pretty tough hiking day, with a really tough last climb to get to the summit but the view was absolutely amazing. We arrived before the rest of all the other hikers so we had the place to ourselves, and he proposed almost on the edge of the volcano. To celebrate, our guide and porters cooked us fresh banana fritters with chocolate sauce topped with cheese (so weird, yet surprisingly good…and memorable!) and we spent the whole evening talking about everything and nothing. All those little details make it one of our best memories.