“I now pronounce you man and wife.”

The words crackle through the iPhone speaker as the face on the screen marries the happy couple.

Speech teacher Stefanie Suto married Raul Rodarte on Nov. 29, 2014 in Austin, Texas near the Colorado River. The only attendees were her husband, herself, her daughter, his niece and her brother-in-law, who married the couple via Facetime.

“Austin meant a lot to both of us for a bunch of different reasons,” Rodarte-Suto said. “It was kind of where I learned that, even though I was older and an adult, I can still go and want to go do things and experience other places. It was his first solo trip, and it was my first trip I took as an adult by myself that made me realize that I don’t have to just live my life where I live and work.”

Rodarte-Suto said they considered getting married overseas, but were dissuaded by family.

“They didn’t love the idea of us getting married not with them and so we negotiated and decided maybe we would do it for the family at New Year’s,” Rodarte-Suto said. “I think you don’t realize how stressful things are going to be because society and your family have a lot of expectations about what a wedding is supposed to look like. We finally decided just the three of us were going to go somewhere.”

Rodarte-Suto planned on marrying at the Capitol building, but the area was busy because of a Christmas parade, so they visited after the wedding.

“There were a couple different brides at the capital, so we got to take our pictures with them,” Rodarte-Suto said. “There was somebody there from India, and she asked if she could take her picture with us. I guess that’s a sign of good luck. Then, we went down Sixth Street because you have to go down Sixth Street. There’s actually a mechanical bull, and I rode the mechanical bull in my dress.”

Rodarte-Suto’s husband proposed over the summer while they were vacationing with her family in Croatia. They were touring Plitvice Lakes, a series of lakes and waterfalls.

“We walked along the path and stopped at one point,” Rodarte-Suto said. “We stood there looking into the waterfalls and that is where he talked about how much he loved traveling with me and loved doing the adventurous things that we get to do together and he loved Kaleigh and me. Then, he asked if we would marry him.”

Rodarte-Suto and her husband met in college and reconnected when he gave an autobiographical presentation at the museum.

“I went to see him speak one afternoon,” Rodarte-Suto said. “I had gone with my cousin who was a former student. She was in college and needed to go to a speaking event.  I told her he was a speaker that she could go watch for her speech class. We (Rodarte and Suto) went out and had coffee and were just friends for a while, then got to know each other a little better and eventually started dating.”

Rodarte-Suto said the most challenging part of being married is learning how to live with another person other than her daughter.

“It’s been a challenge, because I’m over 30 and because I’ve been alone and I’ve never been married before,” Rodarte-Suto said. “I’ve been a mom and have made all of the decisions, so it has been a challenge to figure out how that works. It’s also been really cool to have someone else there as someone I trust to be my voice of reason. It’s been nice to know there is someone there who is on your side that will help you make decisions or will make decisions with you and help in the everyday things.”