I met up with Raquel and Kevin at 8 in the morning at the top of Hurricane Ridge. A storm was blowing in over the next peak, and we could see the rain long before it reached us. The mountains became a little blurry when the rain began, but they look more romantic that way. Even though I’ve been to Hurricane ridge MANY times and have shot there a BUNCH, I’d never been to this part of the ridge before! Neither had Kevin or Raquel so this was an adventure for everyone! The locations I usually go to on the mountain were closed for construction so I had to get a bit creative when looking for new places as there is still a bunch of snow blocking hikes! So we headed to the new view that I had scoped out an hour before, and we gazed at the panoramic view that awaited us.

When we reached the field, Kevin and Raquel took in the view and the turned to face each other. Then they began to say their vows, speaking promises and pouring our their hearts to each other. Then, they exchanged rings, and Raquel struggled to force the ring onto Kevin’s finger because she was shivering! I pronounced them Husband and Wife and they shared their first kiss as a married couple!

Raquel reached out to me on Tuesday and told me that her and Kevin wanted to get married up at Hurricane Ridge, just them and God. You need to have a three-day waiting period once you get a marriage license in Washington so they were hoping to seal the deal THAT Thursday! Luckily, I was free and SO down. I am a licensed officient, so I was going to double as officient and photographer! And we planned on finding some witnesses along the way! We planned to meet at 8am right at sunrise for Thursday, 3 days after they decided to get married!!

After we did the small ceremony, we headed to the parking lot to round up some witnesses. We waved down the first car we saw and asked if they would mind being witnesses to Raquel and Kevin’s marriage. Lol unfortunately the car was full of lawyers so they demanded to see all of id’s and credentials before they would sign any foreign document. Haha but they eventually signed it and it was official! They were married!