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Philadelphia weddings: Ashley Hallowell and Josh Scarbriel

How had he never met his friend's twin sister?

Ashley Hallowell and Josh Scarbriel
Ashley Hallowell and Josh ScarbrielRead moreDenise Marie Photography

Ashley Hallowell and Josh Scarbriel

August 9, 2018, in Stroudsburg, Pa.

Hello there

In the first moments of 2013, Josh lost his reveling friends in the crowd at the now-defunct LiT Ultrabar.  Looking for them, he instead found a Temple University fraternity brother who invited Josh to join him, his then-girlfriend, and their group in another part of the club.

It was fun to see his friend again, as well as Katelyn, whom Josh had known for years. How, he wondered, had he not known that she had a twin sister?  Whatever. Josh was dancing with her now, and she was gorgeous.

"My name's Ashley,"  she yelled when the bass level dropped. "I'm Josh," he yelled back.  Squeezing bits of conversation in between sound waves, they learned the basics of each other's lives: Ashley, who grew up in Quakertown, was a pre-vet student at Penn State. Josh, who grew up in Sweet Valley, Luzerne County,  was working as a paralegal/district attorney's representative in the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office and lived in Manayunk.

Ashley's New Year's Eve was killing her expectations. "He's mine, right?" she asked her sister in a break from dancing.  "Yeah!" Katelyn said. "You are both really nerdy, so it should work out great."

There were sparks, but Ashley didn't trust them. After the club, Josh invited her to hang out at his place. She she suggested he join the group heading to Temple instead.  They talked until they fell asleep.  Later, she drove them to Wawa for breakfast. In the chip aisle, he asked if she'd like to get a cheesesteak that Saturday.

She prefers Shank's; he likes Jim's or  Dalessandro's. But it was so cold that when Josh got off the train they wanted fast shelter, and hit Tavern on Broad instead. They argued about Johnny Manziel, mapped their friends in common, and found a host of times where they had almost met before.  "It was almost like we had known each other a really long time," Ashley said.

"I knew after that first date we were going to be best friends, and we were going to be together," Josh said. "She was smart, passionate, and cared about what I was doing and who I wanted to be."

After graduating, Ashley moved to Philadelphia and began a food safety career at Aramark.  Soon after she moved here, Josh moved north to become a performance analyst at a health-care company in Jessup, Pa., near Scranton.  They saw each other every weekend, but it wasn't enough.  Josh wanted to make a change, so Ashley handed his resumé to someone at Aramark, where he's now a business director.  In 2015, they found a place in Center City and adopted Hubert, a corgi. Hank, a chow-golden mix, joined the family in March 2017.

Ashley liked her job and liked paying off some student debt, but the pull toward veterinary medicine never went away.  Josh "supported me to just do it — to leave my career and go back to veterinary school."  She's now studying at Penn.  She's also the volunteer team and scores manager for the National Field Hockey League.

The engagement

The day before Thanksgiving 2017, Josh, who is now 29, typed "4th and Chestnut" into the Uber app for a surprise, predinner destination.  At least it was a surprise until the driver said out loud, "Oh! Independence Hall!"  Not wanting to make Ashley, who is now 27, suspicious, Josh told the driver Buddakan was their destination.  They ate, and, as is their custom, went for a walk afterward.  Remembering the lovely lighting at Carpenter's Hall, Josh led them there, only to see another guy asking another girl the question he needed to ask Ashley.  Then he thought of Plan C: the park area behind Independence Hall.

"I love this city so much," Josh said when they got there. "It's where our country was founded, and where we were founded. I want you to be my best friend forever."

Ashley started wailing. Then she joined Josh on the ground and said yes.

They walked home, all giddy, to enjoy champagne and Mario Kart.

It was so them

Ashley comes from a long line of Catholics, but a church wedding didn't feel right.  Neither did the big reception venues she and Josh looked at, as pretty as they were.

The couple wanted a celebration that was intimate and personal and religiously neutral. They wanted to spend the day with each other and their inner circle. They wanted nature.  And they wanted stress-free time to relax, eat, and enjoy.  Ashley broke it to her family, appeasing them with a promise to follow up later with a bigger, more traditional ceremony and reception.

And so on a Thursday just before sunset, the couple stood with 10 loved ones and celebrant Alisa Tongg atop a Pocono mountain. Alisa shared their story. They exchanged the vows they wrote each other.  And then, in a ritual the couple invented, came the Sharing of the Beer.

"Whatever comes at us, we know we can sit down and talk it out over a beer — that's what we do," Josh said.  And so he opened and poured a bottle of Two Hearted Ale.  Ashley sipped from their shared glass.  Josh chugged.

The ceremony ended with an Irish blessing. "May the meaning of this hour be fulfilled through the days and years to come," maid of honor Katelyn and best man Keith read. "May the love of this man and this woman, their unity of spirit, grow deeper and stronger."

The couple hosted dinner afterward at Barley Creek Brewing Co. in Tannersville for their parents, siblings, and two best friends.

They plan to have a larger celebration in October 2019 at the same brewery, but there won't be another wedding.  Everyone — even Ashley's mom —  agreed the ceremony had been so perfectly Ashley and Josh that another wasn't needed.

Awestruck

The couple met up just before their ceremony and sat back to back to read the letters each had written for the other. "I loved that we got to be together before we walked out to get married — it was my favorite part of the whole day," Ashley said.  As sweet as it was, she and he were soon laughing,  surprised and delighted to read a letter so much like the one they had written.

On a deck with a beautiful view he barely noticed, Josh and Ashley had their first dance as married people to the Queens of the Stone Age song "Villains of Circumstance."

…Close your eyes and dream me home
Forever mine, I'll be forever yours
Always, evermore, and on and on…

They love those lyrics so much they had the middle line engraved on the bottle opener that opened the beer for their ceremony. "It was such an intimate moment for us," Josh said. "I was just focused on Ashley, not on anything around me. I didn't see until I saw some pictures how beautiful it was. But for me, that moment was unreal."

The budget crunch

A bargain: Ashley and Josh agree they would have happily paid more for the ceremony and setting Alisa provided them. Plus, she let them get ready at her house.

A splurge: Staying in the Mountain View King Suite at Pocono Manor the night of the wedding.

Honeymooning

A weeklong staycation based out of their Pennsport home, with a concert at Penn's Landing; a party thrown in their honor by the best man; many meals at their favorite local haunts; a Franklin Institute visit; and day trips to Top Golf in Edison, N.J., Adventure Aquarium in Ocean City, N.J., and Hershey Park. Plus naps.

Behind the scenes

Officiant: Alisa Tongg, Stroudsburg, Pa.

Ceremony: Promise Ridge, Stroudsburg, Pa.

Reception: Barley Creek Brewing Co. Tannersville, Pa.

Photography: Denise Marie Photography, Philadelphia.

Flowers: Bloom by Melanie, East Stroudsburg, Pa.

Dress: Show Me Your MuMu.

Hair/Makeup: aSPAthecary, Quakertown.