Couple who met on BART tie the knot with whimsical BART-themed wedding at Fairyland

Editor’s note: This love story is written in five parts, in reverse chronological order. The tale begins with a wedding and winds back in time to the couple’s childhoods. Trains – whether of the BART, Pittsburgh Light Rail, or Fairyland Jolly Trolly variety – are essential to each section. Photos courtesy of Katie Weinholt Photography.

I. The BART Wedding  

On May 27, 2023 – seven years and one day after Armin Samii and Marylee Williams met on an East Bay-bound BART train traveling from San Francisco – the couple tied the knot in front of 140 family members and friends at Oakland’s Fairyland. The theme of the wedding was BART.  

As guests streamed into Fairyland on the idyllic spring day, they were greeted by a sign that read, “Welcome aboard!” The sign included a timetable for the evening’s events as well as a photo of Marylee and Armin in BART holiday sweaters, holding their two cats.  

During the ceremony, held in Aesop’s Playhouse, the officiant routinely referenced BART – a central component in the couple’s seven-year-long relationship. The transit system also cropped up in both of their vows.  

“I don’t believe in soulmates, but I do believe in the right people at the right time,” Marylee said when it was her turn to speak. “And Armin, you were exactly the right person on BART to talk to. Accosting someone on a train shouldn’t feel natural, but it did.” 

Armin and Marylee enter the happy hour on the Jolly Trolly. Photos courtesy of Katie Weinholt Photography. 

Following the tying of the knot, Marylee and Armin rode into their happy hour aboard the famed Jolly Trolly.  A hush came over the crowd as the mint green cars chugged into the town square. (If BART is a mass rail system, then the Jolly Trolly is a teensy rail system. The trolly is, however, 18 years BART’s senior). 

At the reception that followed, unique BART touches included escort cards imprinted on BART tickets with guests’ names and assigned “stations,” err tables. A handmade “BART System Map” led guests to the proper stations, which were carefully assigned “based off our guests’ BART vibes,” said Armin.  

The BART ticket escort cards. Photos courtesy of Katie Weinholt Photography. 

Friends they met in Berkeley, for example, sat at the Downtown Berkeley and North Berkeley tables. Visitors from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the couple currently resides, were seated at the Pittsburg/Bay Point table. The SFO and OAK tables hosted family members who traveled from afar.  

“It felt more fun than just a table number,” Marylee said. 

The reception tables each represented a station that was assigned based on the guest’s “BART vibes.” Photos courtesy of Katie Weinholt Photography. 

On the tables, multicolor flowers and pom-poms puffed out of Technicolor vases, which popped against stark white tablecloths. The Fairyland Emerald City Stage, long home to puppet shows and story times, served as the deejay’s platform. To match the vibrant setting of the reception, Marylee quick-changed into a fluffy pink mini dress, paired with black tights and chunky white heels.  

At the afterparty, hosted in the lobby of the wedding hotel (The Moxy in downtown Oakland), the bartender slung cocktails in a blue-and-white bowtie, an homage to BART’s blue-and-white legacy trains.  

Not insignificantly, Armin and Marylee, who are vegan, made the decision to serve solely vegan food at the wedding. The couple said the choice was highly intentional; they wanted to give their friends and family a taste of their day-to-day lives. 

“We wanted to hammer home that our wedding was nontraditional, that we were expressing the values we have as people,” Marylee said.  

Armin added: “It was about having people experience our lives for one night.” (Only a nine-year-old and his younger sister complained. “I learned today I don’t like vegan food,” said the former.) 

To truly give guests a glimpse into their day-to-day lives and core values as a couple, it was essential to Marylee and Armin to frame their wedding around public transportation, especially the system that first introduced them to the joys of transit – BART.  

“We wanted a venue that was easily accessible to our guests, and accessibility to us looks like BART,” Marylee said. “BART was where we had our first taste of not being bound by a car.”  

Armin also noted that they didn’t want guests to have to rent cars; they especially didn’t want anyone driving home drunk.  

“We went back and forth on where to host it,” he said. “Then it was like, why don’t we choose a place near public transit? We didn’t care what city; we just wanted a venue where people could get to easily on transit.”  

Scenes from the Fairyland wedding. Photos courtesy of Katie Weinholt Photography. 

Fittingly, Fairyland is just under a mile from BART’s 19th St/Oakland Station, and if you hop on AC Transit’s NL bus by the station, you can get to the amusement park in about ten minutes. The couple also booked a hotel for their guests that was a ten-minute walk to the venue. 

“We wanted people to experience what our lives are like as people who bike and use transit,” Armin said. “We wanted to give people a taste.”  

That taste included hosting the wedding eve wine night at Press Club near Montgomery St Station in downtown San Francisco. Of the 100 people who showed up, 90 took BART.  

Armin said he and Marylee showed their families at 19th St/Oakland Station how to buy Clipper cards, how to tap in at the fare gates, and how to figure out which train to take and in which direction.  

“A lot of our family had never ridden public transit,” Armin said. “We were really grateful to introduce them to it.”  

II. The T Train Proposal  

In January 2022, after five and a half years of dating and many moves around the U.S., Armin proposed on an aboveground T train in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (their current hometown).  

“We’ve hit a lot of milestones on trains,” Marylee said. 

III. The BART Meet Cute

Armin and Marylee’s paths converged one fateful Thursday evening in 2016. (BART wrote about their meeting in 2021.) 

Armin was heading home from a poker game in the city, and Marylee was leaving an Icelandic film festival. They stumbled upon each other on a Richmond-bound Red Line train heading to the East Bay from San Francisco. Marylee had just barely made the train, and Armin had missed the previous one.  

As the train veered through downtown San Francisco, Marylee decided to ask Armin about the colorful tape on his bike: “Why does it look like that? Do you go to Burning Man?” Accustomed to this question on BART, Armin replied briefly -- “Not yet, maybe next year” -- then put his headphones back in, planning to ignore her the rest of the trip. Marylee was, Armin admitted some seven years after the chance encounter, extremely persistent.  

When the train pulled into Embarcadero Station, Armin watched Marylee get on all fours to pet a “tiny dog” face to face. He became intrigued by the strange woman’s unusual behavior, and, somewhere under the Bay between Embarcadero and West Oakland, the two struck up a proper conversation.  

After a few minutes, they began to discuss radio – Marylee is a radio/audio journalist and producer – including a podcast they both enjoyed, 99% Invisible. The podcast had released a special challenge coin (not unlike the challenge coins used by military personnel) for members, allowing coin bearers to “coin check” others. If the coin-checked did not have the coin on her person, she owed the coin-checker a drink.  

Left: The challenge coins. Right: Armin and Marylee pose with Armin’s colorful bicycle. 

Armin proceeded to coin-check Marylee, who fatefully had left her coin at home. She owed him a beer.  

Just as the coin-checking scenario unfolded, the BART train carrying the two conversationalists pulled into Downtown Berkeley Station – Armin’s stop.  

As he hastily disembarked before the doors closed, Marylee yelled, “How am I supposed to buy you a beer? You don’t even know my name!”  

Armin turned around.  

“What’s your name?” he asked. 

“Marylee Williams!” she shouted as the doors squeezed shut. 

As the train carried onward, Marylee was distressed and regretful -- “Why didn’t I get off the train?” she lamented to herself. As her stop came around – North Berkeley Station – she got off the train and called her grandmother. “I met this guy, I don’t know where he is, and I’ll never see him again,” she groaned. Grandma replied, “Well that’s too bad, but maybe you’ll see him again.”  

Meanwhile, still at Downtown Berkeley Station, Armin began internet-sleuthing for the mysterious Marylee. Nothing came up, so he then decided to race the train to North Berkeley Station – a trip he knew took five minutes on bike, three minutes by train.  

“It’s possible that if she hangs around for three minutes, I might catch her,” he thought. “But it turns out, the trains go faster than I can bike.”  

Alas, when Marylee got home, she checked her Facebook. There was a message waiting from a man named Armin. The two had found each other in cyberspace.  

After three dates in three days – Armin had a trip booked to Sweden, hence the condensed timeline – the two were smitten.  

IV. BART Enters the Picture

When Marylee moved to the Bay Area from Baton Rouge in 2015, she discovered a newfound love in having access to a mass rail transit system.  

“I’ve been a fan of BART for a long time. It’s functional, affordable, and gets me where I need to go,” she said. “When I was getting my master's degree at Berkeley, I think I had my best thoughts and most relaxing times on the train.”  

Marylee admitted the trains could be crowded and frustrating, “but it was easy,” and she liked the communal experience.  

“I’ve always enjoyed the soft swaying of the train as it takes me home,” she added.  

Armin had sold his car not long after moving to Berkeley in 2011. Sold might not be quite the correct term. 

“I actually lent it to a friend because I wasn’t using it – I was biking and taking transit everywhere. It wasn’t until a year later that I realized she still had it,” he said.  

Around that time, Armin was commuting by Amtrak to San Jose from Berkeley. He loved that he could work for the duration of the 90-minute ride.  

“That was probably when I started to realize BART and trains weren’t just a way to get around, but something I had an emotional connection to,” he said.  

Armin also admitted that Marylee wasn’t the first date he met on BART: “Before Marylee, I had met a ton of people on BART, including dates.”  

He continued: “When going on dates in general, I’d always take BART. The date would start and stop at the BART station.” 

V. BBE: Before BART Era  

Armin and Marylee grew up in places lacking substantial public transportation – if the places had it at all. 

Marylee spent her childhood in Mississippi and Louisiana. “I’ve been driving since I was 14-and-a-half,” she said, while Armin grew up in the suburbs of San Diego.  

“Back then, public transit was an adventure for me,” Armin said. “My grandpa would say, ‘Let’s take the bus today!’ And we’d ride it for a loop or two. That was about the extent of my transit use.”  

 The End