A TikTok bride wore a $250 dress for an intimate outdoor ceremony attended by 10 select guests and a swarm of golden retrievers

• Sam Patterson and Monica Gartner got married in an intimate ceremony in February.
• The ceremony was attended by just 10 people and the couple's priest's dog-walking group.

Sam Patterson and Monica Gartner dated for six years across two continents before they tied the knot on February 22.

Sam, from Cheshire in the UK, and Monica, from Long Island in New York, met through a mutual friend in 2015. They started their joint YouTube channel in 2017 to document their long-distance relationship and inspire other couples facing long distance. In 2020 they followed up the channel, which has more than 640,000 subscribers, with a TikTok account, which has more than 2 million followers.

After getting engaged in 2019, Sam and Monica were supposed to get married in 2021 but had to cancel because of the pandemic, they said in a YouTube video.

They were finally able to get married last month, in a ceremony that had just 10 guests and several golden retrievers. The couple spoke with Insider about their special day.

The bride wore a $250 dress from Bloomingdale's, and her priest's dog-walking group watched the ceremony

Sam and Monica had their wedding at a gazebo in a public park in Monica's hometown, Northport. Monica didn't walk down an aisle but was driven with her parents to the gazebo, where Sam and their guests were waiting.

They told Insider that it was just a formality for Sam's visa, as his permanent residence had been in the UK, and that they'd have another ceremony in July for their friends and family. His dad, who is based in the UK, was the only family member able to attend their February ceremony in person; his other family members watched over video calls.

Sam told Insider that they had originally planned to get married "in jeans and T-shirts" before deciding to dress up for the intimate ceremony. Sam purchased a suit from Macy's, while Monica opted for a $250 dress on sale from Bloomingdale's.

The dress had spaghetti straps and flares at the hem. Monica said she didn't consider it to be her real wedding dress, as she already had a dress picked out for the July ceremony. She completed the look with hoop earrings, a white shawl, and white heels, and she wore her hair in natural waves.

"My dream has always been to walk down the aisle and for him to see me for the first time," Monica told Insider. "It's in all the romantic movies. So I didn't want to wear a wedding dress."

She added that "the best part of the day" was immediately after the ceremony when she met up with her priest's dog-walking group, who had watched from a distance.

"The priest knew that Monica is the biggest dog lover, and he has a dog and is part of a dog-walking group with people that have a bunch of golden retrievers," Sam told Insider. "He said to them, 'Hey, can you come and make Monica's day and watch the ceremony?'"

After the ceremony, the couple paid tribute to their former long-distance relationship by going to dinner at a local Japanese restaurant where Sam had shown up and surprised Monica five years ago.

"As an ode to the long-distance part of our relationship, we went back there as our first meal after the wedding, and we took the whole family there," Sam said. "It was very fun, wasn't it? It was very nontraditional."

You can watch the full ceremony on Sam and Monica's YouTube channel.