GUYS! It's finally here, up on the blog: one of my very favorite shoots from this year! We had the enormously fun honor of getting to know Julie & JC when we shot their wedding in Monroe this past summer. These guys are some of the most supportive, fun, warm people you'll ever meet. They instantly care for and encourage literally anyone they encounter, and their joie de vivre is downright infectious. There's never not a party around these two, and we love them a whole friggin lot. They love to backpack and hike, but since JC is from Spain, Julie is from Kansas, and literally all of their loved ones would be coming from every corner of the world to celebrate them, they wanted to throw an amazing, once in a life time party to celebrate their wedding (ok well, *technically* it's sorta their second wedding, since they were legally married in Canada several years ago, but this was their most official wedding).

They thought about how having a wedding in the mountains they've grown to love so much would be amazing, but it was hard to fit in with their plans of a big, traditional celebration with 150 people. Luckily, Julie saw one of my posts on instagram about our new (at the time!) package of Adventure Weddings, which sounded like the perfect fit for them. Not only would they get to celebrate their wedding in a more traditional setting with tons of friends & family, but then they'd had some time together deep in the mountains, like an elopement! It was pretty perfect.

So, a few months after their wonderful wedding in July (which will be getting its own blog post here soon, I promise!!), we met back up in the North Cascades for their adventure session. We moved the day of the shoot forward to gamble on some better weather, since the forecast was looking very dicey, and we lucked out with a gorgeous day of sunshine from start to finish! Good thing too, because there a ridiculous poooooouring rainstorm the day we were originally scheduled to shoot, so we definitely dodged a bullet there. Julie picked up a bouquet from a local farmer's market and we headed up to a gorgeous alpine lake in the North Cascades, wedding clothes in tow.

The larches were just beginning to turn yellow, but the skies were still warm, the lake insanely blue, and watching the evening glow on the huge rock faces behind the lake was a site to see. When we first arrived, most of the spots around the lake were still full of hikers, so we headed up-hill to find some quieter spaces and stumbled upon some amazing overlooks of the valley below and the peaks across from us. Julie looked so stunning in her custom Pronovias gown (with those rose gold berks, hell yeah!), and JC looked dapper in his bright royal blue suit.

After wandering around for a while and discovering a few hidden gems, including a mini pond that I think might be my favorite spot in the whole wide world, we came back to the lake. At this point, it was close to evening and all the day hikers had left except us. They popped some champagne, and we threw some music on our portable speaker and Julie & JC had a (second) first dance on the shores of the incredibly blue lake.

This whole day was just a huge reminder of why we love doing Adventure Weddings. They are such a wonderful way for folks torn between two different kinds of celebration to find a way to have both. It was also some of the most gorgeous weather we got to shoot in all year, and also a great reminder of why we love the North Cascades so much, they are truly spectacular.