ARIAL + MICHAEL - PEBBLE COVE FARM, ORCAS ISLAND, WASHINGTON WEDDING
Arial and Michael’s Orcas Island wedding was one of the most beautiful wedding weekends I’ve had the pleasure to be a part of. Arial found me through Instagram and asked if I would be willing to travel to the San Juan Islands for their wedding and I said heck yes! Arial is a badass marine mammal biologist who studies whales and comes out to the islands every year for her work. Michael owns a rigging business in Puget Sound and is usually on the water. So there’s no place they’d rather get married. They had to postpone their wedding because of COVID, but it just gave me the chance to get to know Arial more through social media before their big day (which made it all the more special for me). Arial and I grabbed coffee near Pike’s Place a month before her wedding when I was already in Seattle shooting another wedding that trip. We chatted over coffee looking out at the ocean.
Fast forward to their wedding weekend. Orcas Island is truly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Washington has deeply stolen my heart the past couple wedding seasons. We took a ferry from Anacortes to Orcas.
A + M shared a sweet private first look down by the water and a ceremony with their closest family and friends. Arial’s mom walked her down the aisle. Their reception toasts were beautiful, especially Arial’s sister’s. Their father had passed away and Arial’s sister played a recording of their father singing + playing guitar, never heard by Arial before. As a recording started to play, Arial asked “Is this dad?”. She started crying. Immediately there were tears shed all around. Arial grabbed her mom and danced to her father singing to her on her wedding day. It was one of the most wholesome moments I’ve been a part of and we all felt Arial’s father there with us. She also shared her father daughter dance with 3 important men in her life.
Mamiya RB67 Portra 400 images
