I met Shon in the loud, sweaty thrall of an IDLES concert. Not a meet-cute. A meet-loud.
We were Instagram acquaintances first, orbiting each other through the gravitational pull of creative work. His music and photography. My writing and general weirdness. I’m a writer, a former music journalist, and now the director of PR at Meow Wolf. Shon is a musician and photographer by night, project manager by day. For a long time we were just scene colleagues from afar, the kind of connection that exists mostly as likes, comments, and mutual respect. Then IDLES released Crawler.
I listened for the first time one weekend and immediately fell in love with the band. I messaged Shon something calm and normal, like: “OH MY GOD THIS FUCKING BAND, I WANT TO TATTOO THEM ON MY BODY.” It was the perfect doorway because it wasn’t a doorway at all, just two people geeking out about the same thing without trying to be impressive.
When IDLES came to Denver, I posted that I had two extra VIP tickets I was looking to sell. Shon already had a regular ticket, a photo pass, and a reviewer pass. Three tickets. One human. He bought one of mine anyway just as a means to meet me.
That night he bought my friend and me a drink, we talked for a bit, and then he disappeared into the photo pit, giving me the perfect amount of an introduction to be compelling but mysterious.
Months later, he texted out of the blue: “What are you doing tomorrow?” Directness isn’t usually his Midwestern style, but something had shifted. He’d just returned from Milan, where he studied with fashion photographer Lindsay Adler, and came home with an epiphany that he needed to carpe diem.
I told him I’d be at a 21+ party night at Meow Wolf Denver and invited him to come. It was chaotic and colorful in the way could make or break a date. I was leading a group of drag performers on a birthday tour through alien landscapes wearing sequins, surrounded by art, noise, and neon.
Convergence Station became a place of convergence for us, in the most literal way. Shon and I sat in the Cosmohedron in Numina talking about life, and we learned that we were both devoted parents–something that told me instantly that he was a real one. Afterward, we sat on the curb outside and talked for hours. I kissed him first. He rode off on his Triumph motorcycle like a cool dude.
At 39, divorced with two kids, I didn’t think I’d fall in love again. My feminist punk persona has always been a little “too much” for some men and intoxicating for the wrong ones. I’d started to accept the idea that being fully understood was a luxury item I might not get in this lifetime.
But with Shon, it felt like inevitability.
On our second date, we kissed so long a security guard working the nighttime streets of downtown Denver came over to check on us. That winter, we fell in love in his downtown loft, trading long voice memos, sharing wine and snacks, and opening up about everything in the unglamorous, real way that actually builds something.
One night, mid-kiss, I had the thought: Are we falling in love? Shon pulled back and looked at me like I’d said the quiet part out loud. Then he simply said, “Yes.”
We moved in together in 2023. And two years almost to the day after we met at that first IDLES concert, we saw them again at Mission Ballroom. This time, in the middle of the crowd, with friends and family around us, Shon got down on one knee and proposed.
I cried immediately and said, “Fuck yes.” A stranger handed us a celebratory joint.
So when it came time to decide where to get married, it made a strange kind of perfect sense that our wedding would be less “venue” and more world.
We got married at Meow Wolf Denver, inside Convergence Station, where we had our first real date. Before Meow Wolf Denver opened, I remember walking the vast, meandering paths of Numina back when it was empty, learning the lay of the land of this 90,000-square-foot behemoth so I could give media tours once it opened. With my headphones on, before the lighting or sound layers fully activated, it felt like I’d stumbled onto an alien planet alone.
Shon was a Meow Wolf fan long before I worked there. His entry point was Santa Fe. He once followed a mass exodus of artsy-looking people (as one does) and ended up at Zozobra. Someone told him about House of Eternal Return. He went, and that was that.
Still, I wasn’t totally sold on getting married at my place of work. Even with all the meaning, even with the mind-boggling atmosphere, there’s something a little surreal about saying vows in a building where you also answer emails. But it ended up being better than I could’ve imagined.
Before the ceremony, we took wedding photos with local fashion photographer Roxie, which meant we got to run all over the exhibition in full wedding attire and make a scene. We went everywhere. We even went onto the roof. It was cold enough that I was dragging my train through icy puddles, but we got the shot.
We did the ceremony in public, among the crowds, on a busy day. I wanted to get married in Numina because it’s a place of profound beauty and meaning to me, and I loved the idea that strangers would get folded into the moment. I wanted to be one of the surprises someone stumbled upon inside the multiverse. Not “a private event,” but a living scene. I wanted to be part of the art, part of someone’s story that day.
When it was time to process through Numina, my son, my daughter, and my two nieces came with me. Each of them carried a lantern speaker with music, so the sound moved with us. There was a brief technical difficulty with my veil, the kind of tiny glitch that feels enormous for ten seconds and then disappears into the story. Other than that, it was gorgeous.
Before the ceremony, I ran to HELLOFOOD to get a can of wine. (It was my wedding day.) I walked into the cafe in my dress and the entire room applauded. Not because they knew me; just because humans are occasionally sweet in a way that catches you off guard. Later, I went to the bathroom to fix my makeup and a few women told me they’d just seen me get married in Numina and that it was beautiful. A girls bathroom bonding moment.
The staff was wonderful and accommodating, which matters more than any aesthetic detail ever will. And after all was said and done, my only regret is that my coworkers had to sit through me and my family doing karaoke in Sips with a Z.
(Actually, no. I regret nothing.)
Check out:
- our gorgeous professional wedding photos by Roxie. I cannot stress how gorgeous these are, not because of us but because she is so talented and the environment was incredible.
- our reception photos mostly taken by 10 year olds on disposable cameras, but are surprisingly amazing, and
- our ceremony photos.
Erin K. Barnes 