“You and me with the world” sign GOAT, 2025.

Group photo just after our acid ceremony at The Monastery, 2022.

It's a tradition for our community to take a group photo Sunday late afternoon at GOAT Festival, at the "you and me with the world" sign by the entrance. If you're curious about the backstory, here it is.

David and I left NYC in 2018 to nomad and travel around the world. We came across an Amsterdam music community called “The Gardens of Babylon” through SoundCloud, of all things, and went to one of their parties. That party turned out to be Seekers of Light during ADE (their best every year).

The following year, in 2019, we discovered a whole new way of gathering around music we adored, and found ourselves part of a community built on it. That year we went to Monastery (The Garden’s summer festival), Burning Man, and Wonderfruit for the first time. That’s when we finally understood what it meant to find our tribe.

It was only after discovering Amsterdam that we discovered true friendship. We'd moved around for most of our lives and never really had friends who felt like family. This period marked a before and after for us. We didn't know what it meant to truly live until then.

David and I had gotten married during the pandemic in 2020 so we could use each other's passports to travel, and never celebrated it. In early 2022, I asked David how we could get all our friends to come with us to Wonderfruit, our favorite festival at the time, which was happening again that December. He said, "Just tell everyone we're getting married there, and everyone will come." Genius idea, I thought. We told our friends we were getting married at Wonderfruit that December, and they started booking their flights. 🙃

Then in August 2022, a few months before that wedding, David and I were at Monastery, Sunday evening, post acid day, reminiscing and feeling grateful for our community and each other. We realized something: everyone coming to celebrate our wedding was someone we'd met only in the last three years.

Our life together flashed before our eyes. We'd gone from never feeling fully at home anywhere to being surrounded by awesome humans who made our life exciting, where every day became something to look forward to. We were experiencing a life that we didn’t even know to dream of.

That's when David looked at me and said, "It's you and me against the world." Then he stopped. "But wait, why does it have to be against the world? What is a world without our friends? It should be you and me with the world." It felt even more right given how we'd started that very day with our chosen family.

On David's birthday a month later, I got "you and me with the world" tattooed on my forearm, his name underneath in Morse code. He got the same one on his arm a month after that.

During our wedding reception at Wonderfruit, we told our 53 friends this whole story and had them all open their gifts at the same moment: a gold bracelet engraved with the image of our tattoo. While others might think of a wedding as a celebration of two people's love for each other, to us it was a celebration of the people we love who make us who we are. A celebration of the community that makes our lives worth living.

This gift is a reminder that they will always have community with us, and with each other. ❤️‍🔥

Over the last couple years, whenever we meet someone who we deeply connect with, we tell them this story and give them a bracelet too.

Bruno, Marco, and Joao, three of the five GOAT Festival founders, were in Amsterdam for the Butterflies party hosted by The Gardens of Babylon in May 2024. That's where we met, and we spent two inseparable days together. Before they flew back to Portugal, we shared this story with them.

Our wedding reception group photo at Wonderfruit, 2022.

On the plane ride home, the boys decided they wanted to do something for us at GOAT. What they came up with was a "YOU AND ME WITH THE WORLD" sign at the front entrance. 🥹 It's the sweetest, most thoughtful surprise anyone has ever done for us. This quote has always been about all of us coming together and creating magic.

Words can't describe the energy, vibe, and love we all felt at GOAT in the last two years. I think I speak for most of us when I say it's by far the best, most coziest experience we've ever had anywhere.

I know there will be many more experiences and many more surprises to come. This is just the beginning. 💜

When you join us for the group photo, you're not just watching the story unfold, you're part of it.

See you there!

Friends receiving their gifts at Wonderfruit, 2022.

Bruno with his gift, May 2024.

“You and me with the world” sign at the front entrance of GOAT, 2024.

Group photo at GOAT, 2024.

Community photo at GOAT, 2025. The year before, we came as friends. This year, we arrived as a community. ❤️‍🔥

Thank you for being part of our community and our story.

💌 With love,

Melissa + David #youandmewiththeworld