University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture Wedding | Mai & Jake

The UW Center for Urban Horticulture is seriously a secret gem for wedding venues in Seattle. It’s tucked way up on the north side of the campus by Laurelhurst, and beware, on a game day is SCARY HARD to reach. Mai, the bride, and I were attempting to get there in different cars calling each other back and forth to report this road closure and that one. We finally made it but we had to be quick and rearrange the timeline on the fly.

It actually all worked out super well (thanks to their amaze attitudes and extra padding in every timeline I work on). You never know what’s going to happen, and it’s always good to have a backup plan for your backup plan on a day as big as your wedding. I take this part of it all really seriously, and never just show up on a wedding day to shoot. Being a huge part of the planning process allows me to build trust with my awesome couples and to ensure there’s a plan for when things don’t go according to plan.

My favorite part of the day was all of it. Ha, but seriously. There’s a great little bridge there and a row of trees making it a great place to get the first look and a great series of portraits. The Center for Urban Horticulture is a dream for photos because it’s so well curated and kept. Everywhere you turn will work. So instead of having to make sacrifices for background because of light obstacles, you just get help narrowing down the beauty. I loved the light in the field behind the venue, and the beautiful enormous trees with the bridal party photos were all a short walk. You get a great variety of photo options at the Center for Urban Horticulture, making it one of my favorites to work with.

My advice to all brides is to get a donut truck! OMG! They hired Mini the Dough-Nut Truck and it was such a great highlight, forgoing the traditional cake (I’m always excited to buck a tradition or two), and making it a separate chapter for guests to escape the dance floor for a second. The cinnamon-sugar donuts were delicious. Yeah, I ate them while one-handing my camera.

Another piece of advice I have is to re-think the grand exit. Honestly, it doesn’t always work to do it at the end of the night. A lot of people have left (bye, grandma) and it’s a bummer for special people to miss out. Also, sparkler exit + alcohol = danger. I have stories. Lastly, you seriously don’t need your wedding photographer to stay through all of the dancing. You’ll get an overwhelming amount of photos back and it’s not worth shelling out the cash to have me stay all the way to the last second. We did a fun human arch tunnel to welcome them from their golden hour portraits into their reception and it was so fun! And best of all, nobody missed out.

If you have the Center for Urban Horticulture on your list for your Seattle wedding venue don’t hesitate to ask me more about what it was like! And if you’re a photographer, hit me up if you have questions on shooting, etc.

Vendors:

Venue: UW Center for Urban Horticulture

Dress: Tadashi Shoji (BHLDN) via Brides for a Cause

Alterations: Andra Bose

Suit: J Crew

Florals: Woods Creek Florals

Catering and bartending: Wich Came First

Donut truck: Mini the Dough-Nut

DJ: Oren Artlip of Karr Productions

Rentals: Sweet Buffet Lady

Discovery Park Engagement Session | Seattle Wedding Photographer

Sammy & Alejandro are planning a destination wedding and asked me to capture their engagement session. Sammy had been following on Instagram, and I love the joy of meeting people in real life from that crazy little app!

Discovery Park is one of my favorite spots for engagement photos in Seattle because it’s so beautiful all year round, it’s one of the only spots I know if that has a vast grassy field overlooking water, and it’s a good walk from the parking lot to the area I like to shoot, which means we get plenty of time to get to know each other. I try to never start shooting until I feel like there’s a solid baseline of trust between me and my couple. I want to be able to pick up on their energy, read their cues and really tell their true story, never just run them through a bunch of poses I use with everyone.

After the park, we ran over to the downtown area of Magnolia to switch up the vibe. We grabbed a coffee and wandered. Without a specific plan, we just followed the light and looked for spots that felt right. To me, it’s so much better than pre-scouting a spot and then having the light change, and nothing is the way I thought it would be. This way, it’s a bit of a hunt we go on together, and feels like an adventure. There’s always good light to be found in Seattle.

Updated to include film scans from this day! Shooting film is becoming a passion of mine quickly. It’s a way to offer a totally fresh and different perspective to a digital set of images. I love the texture and the of-the-moment sense.

Great Hall at Green Lake Untraditional Wedding | Erinn & Raj

Let me begin by saying that I love weddings of all kinds. Even if everything has been done a million times, I still well up during several parts of the day, just floored with what I’m witnessing. Humans are so incredibly complex and deep-feeling, and weddings are a chance to let it all flow.

That said, I love when couples come to me with a unique vision for their day. Yeah, it’s fun to photograph something unique, but moreover, it means they’ve put something of themselves into it. They’ve crafted a day around their love, and to me, there’s nothing more exciting than capturing authentic joy.

So after finding me on Junebug Weddings, when Erinn told me the plans of their wedding, I was so on board. Getting ready together, a classic portrait session, a tiny private ceremony followed by a big celebration with all their family and friends. The best of ALL worlds. If you’re not one for committing your life to someone with a crowd hanging, this is such a great way of including everyone in the joy without making it a performance, if that’s how it tends to feel to you. They kept the day simple and focused on the most important things: their love story and the ones they share it with.

The Great Hall at Green Lake is a historic and beautiful space for a wedding. I love its great amounts of natural light (especially later in the afternoon when the sun comes streaming in through the big windows!). I also love that it has string lights set up, which make any — I say ANY — wedding more beautiful. Any kind of glowy light you can add to your wedding, man, do it.

Enjoy.

Fallon + Dave | A Whidbey Island Garden Wedding at Wayfarer

Days before I turned 30, I ferried over with my little family to Whidbey Island to capture Fallon & Dave’s wedding. We stayed in a great little cabin in the woods, complete with a hot tub which we used both nights, baby sleeping inside. I try to blend a little vacation time in with weddings that require an overnight — this one happened to kick off the WEEK OF 30 which was full of adventures and family time. Fun fact: the morning of their wedding, my baby started walking! I was buzzing all day long. I never would have believed the things that get me as excited as they do with my son.

Walking into Fallon’s getting-ready AirBnB, I could feel the closeness and bond with her friends, many of whom came from Colorado where she had lived previously. Everyone was excited to be together, and it’s my favorite thing to just get absorbed into someone’s life and reality for a day and to make beautiful photos of it. I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking.

Enjoy.