Why I’ll Wear My Garmin Epix Pro 2 Even at My Wedding

I own Swiss watches. Beautiful ones. The kind that belong on a wrist at a wedding, in a boardroom, or during an anniversary dinner. They tick with legacy, with status, with a kind of timeless elegance that’s hard to argue against. And yet, when I imagine my own wedding day, I don’t see myself wearing one of them. I see myself wearing my Garmin Epix Pro 2.

Ridiculous, right? Even I think so.There’s a small voice that tells me it’s not “appropriate.” That walking down the aisle with a chunky GPS watch isn’t exactly what GQ would recommend. But then there’s the louder voice — the one that says: this is me.

It’s not just about the data, though let’s be honest, I do love seeing my resting heart rate while I’m pretending to look calm. It’s about what the Garmin represents. The Swiss watches tell the world something: sophistication, permanence, taste. The Garmin tells me something: discipline, consistency, progress.

And this isn’t just theory. I’ve lived the awkward scenes.A black-tie wedding where my sleeve rides up and the Garmin peeks out — more “ultra marathon” than “black tie.” A client dinner where everyone’s showing off elegant, thin, shiny wristwear and mine lights up with my daily step count. Or the one time my girlfriend looked at me, half-laughing, half-exasperated: “Really? The Garmin? Tonight?” She wasn’t wrong. But the truth is, I couldn’t leave it behind. It felt like leaving part of myself at home.

That’s the strange collision of functional and emotional value. On paper, the Garmin is functional: GPS, HRV, training load. Data, data, data. The Swiss watch is emotional: heritage, luxury, tradition. But here’s the twist — somewhere along the way, the Garmin crossed over. It stopped being just functional. It became emotional. Every run, every workout, every early morning where I dragged myself out of bed and the watch tracked it all — that history built an attachment stronger than polished steel and Swiss mechanisms ever could.

Now it feels like the Garmin isn’t just measuring me. It’s with me.And that changes everything. Because when I sit in a meeting and notice someone else wearing a Garmin, the conversation shifts instantly. It’s not small talk anymore; it’s recognition. We already share a language: pace, VO₂ max, discipline. Maybe even the same character. You don’t get that with a Swiss watch. You get admiration, sure. But you don’t get the nod, the subtle acknowledgment of shared suffering on a 5 a.m. long run.

So yeah, maybe it’s “wrong” to wear a Garmin to a wedding. Maybe it doesn’t match the suit. Maybe my girlfriend is right to roll her eyes. But it feels right. And in the end, that’s what emotional value does: it makes the functional indispensable, until it’s more than the sum of its parts.

Because while the Swiss piece tells the world who I should be, the Garmin reminds me who I really am. And that’s the only time that matters.