Happily Ever Eloped

After getting engaged to Tayler, I finally had the opportunity to plan the wedding of my childhood dreams. Unfortunately, I slowly realized that my ambitious wedding dreams didn’t mesh well with reality. We started to make accommodation after accommodation to create a wedding that “worked” for everyone. All the magic of our big day was getting swept away by the idea of what a wedding “should” be. Finally, we cracked under the pressure and decided to go back on our 150 Save the Dates. This was clearly NOT part of the plan! It took strength and courage to let go of our plans and put our relationship first.

About a year after we called off our wedding, Tayler and I were able to ask ourselves what mattered most. Truly, all we wanted was a celebration that was meant to honor our love. An elopement was the perfect solution.

Once we decided to make our day about us, everything seemed to fall into place. We picked the place (Hug Beach on the Oregon Coast), bought our plane tickets to Portland, packed our bags and we were off.

Upon arriving in Portland, we had errands to run – getting our wedding license and purchasing flowers for the ceremony to name a few! That evening we proceeded to stay up late to prep all the last-minute details to for the next day. The morning of our wedding, we cruised down to a local salon to get our hair done before making the hour and a half drive to the beach.

Once we made it to the beach, we began collecting natural driftwood and constructed a custom arch to get married under. Making the arch was challenging, to say the least. We started by collecting big pieces of driftwood and dug holes in the sand with the waves lapping at our feet. Once the base was done we were able to work together to create the overarching logs. Laughing, playing and exploring the coast was so fun, but the best part was watching other couples take pictures under the arch we had created as we left to get ready at our log cabin.

The photographer met us at our cozy cabin to start capturing all the details (including us taking shots of 80-year-old Jameson!). Once we were dolled up and ready, we headed back to the beach to add the finishing floral touches. Before we knew it, the officiant and witness were there and we took our spots for the most beautiful ceremony that was all about us -our journey and the lifelong commitment we were embarking on. Both of us had to take a deep breath to center ourselves in the moment. Everything was perfect. We didn’t miss anything about what we thought it “should” have been and were so alive staring into each other’s eyes, knowing that this would be something we would remember for the rest of our lives.