Foxy wedding

(As always, higher res versions of my photos can be found here)

On Wednesday Sam and I packed our bags and walked to the San Francisco Civic Center BART stop. BART took us to SFO and from there it was on to Seattle. That night all but one of B’s groomsmen arrived and we (and Sam and another groomsman’s wife) were set to work on wedding tasks.

There was still a lot of work to be done and so over the next three days we did everything from painting signs to filling coffee bag favors to packing books to making bunting, etc. I never knew what bunting was until now. Of course all this was the lead up to the actual wedding on Saturday, at Admiralty Head Lighthouse.

Byron and Christine’s house was filled with wedding stuff when we arrived, so we were grateful they were able to make room for us to sleep!

Thursday morning Byron and Christine had errands to run and the crafting was put off until the afternoon. Sam and I hitched a ride with Christine down to the Pike’s Market so we could enjoy some of our favorite Seattle food – Beacher’s Mac&Cheese and the Chowder/sandwiches at Pike Place Chowder.

The wedding prep was mostly crowdsourced (the wedding part and select friends), so we were making final prep right up until the music was cued. None of the official photos have been released yet, and I was in the ceremony so I couldn’t take many of my own, but I do have some location and process shots that I was able to snap at certain points. Sam took several photos too.

After we took a cab back to the house the crafting began.

Sam(‘s camera) took this one of us at dinner Thursday night with all the groomsmen.

The next morning we all drove up early to Whidbey Island. Sam and I were staying at the Crocket B&B with the bride and groom (and several bridesmaids).

We gathered in the dining room for breakfast at the B&B, B&C were already emotional over what was about to happen. The tears (of joy!) would not stop for the next 48 hours.

The setting was extremely rustic. There were majestic and beautiful storm clouds billowing overhead the entire weekend. I very very rarely got an opportunity to go off and shoot any of the landscape, a pain that I’m sure Byron felt too (we both have NEX’s, if you didn’t know).

This was shot right outside the B&B next to the barn where the reception would be:

Sam took this photo from the rehearsal on Friday:

snapshot from Alan:

Practice makes perfect:

After the rehearsal we went to the dinner at Garrison Hall where a local chef had made some delicious fresh pork dish. It was so fresh he told us the name of the pig.

It was here that Byron gave us (other than our bow ties) the groomsman gifts. He’d carefully picked out a “spirit animal” for each of us, since so much had been made of his adoption of “the fox.” My animal was, of course, the wise and quiet owl. What the other dudes didn’t know is that we’d decided on my animal a long time ago. Getting the tie clips with our animals sculpted in metal was a surprise for all of us, and we each tried to incorporate them into our outfits the next day, even though we weren’t wearing traditional ties. See if you can spot our clips (pins?) in the photos below from the actual wedding day.

The ceremony itself was perfect for B&C, taking place under layered gray skies by a little light house on the tip of an island north of Seattle. After they said their vows and exchanged rings, the gray skies parted and brought down shafts of pale yellow sun onto the water behind them. For someone born and raised in Ohio this weather kindled more than a few homesick knots in my stomach. Luckily it never more than drizzled on the festivities until it was time to relocate to a barn festooned for the reception. Byron and Christine are in Bali right now, and then New Zealand after that, so I won’t be waiting for them to release the wedding photos to post things up on here, but the photos will be great whenever they do come out.

Breakfast at B&B morning of:

Driving around prepping for the wedding I snapped a few shots out of the window of the moving car:

We stopped at Knead and Feed for snacks, which includes a little stairway to this amazing view:

Does he look nervous?

Back at the barn things were coming together (we’d set up most of this the day before):

Downstairs the bar was being prepped as well as the photo booth area:

Everyone got to take home a teacup:

Remember those bottles of gin? (yeah, I know.. you can’t read it, so go to the flickr page!)

We would later be told by the Art Director Groom that we were creating a fire hazard and would have to pick all this up. It was still fun though to rip up those books.

Prepping the coffee bags. We’d hand stamped and filled each of these on Thursday.

Nametags are all ready for the party (almost):

After this point in the prep I had to put my camera away and my suit on. For the remainder of the day it would be Sam taking a lot of photos at the ceremony and reception as well as our other friends in attendance:

One taken by David:

View from the guest area:

This one’s from an instagram as Byron and I walk up to take our spots. So serious!:

And at the reception there was the usual speech by the best man. You know I wrote and rewrote that thing 5,000 times leading up to the actual day. All that prep and I ended up basically winging it.

I never realized how much work it is to put on a wedding until I was actually involved with it, nor had I ever paid such intimate attention to the intricacies and staging of the event. Without all of the groomsmen working together and watching out for those little details the wedding could have easily gone off the rails. However, it didn’t, and the guests were none the wiser that the entire thing was staged by the twelve or so guys and gals sitting with them at the tables. Also a huge help was Byron’s uncle who volunteered to cook (at the expense of missing the ceremony) the delicious cajun food for the 120+ guests.

Remember the photobooth? You can see all the photos here.

Here are our photos in case you don’t want to sift through:

Jessica Keener Photography