TIFFANY + CHRIS [milton-freewater, OR]

if you were a kiss, I know I’d be a hug

all I want is you, will you be my bride

take me by the hand and stand by my side.

Barry Louis Polisar – All I Want is You

Yes, it says August 3, 2013. 

AND it’s cause I’m a year late in blogging wedding pictures – but that’s okay, right? Cause I have other lives outside of photography blogging, but we won’t go into ALL that now. 

Regardless! I had the insanely awesome privilege of second-shooting Tiffany + Chris’ beautiful, dusty, backyard August wedding in Oregon last summer.

It was such a lovely day – and sharing it with a lovely family – a gorgeous bride and handsome groom and their little daughter – was awesome.

There IS a funny story about how I got there, though.

I drove down with my Mom (so she could keep my company for those five hours!). We had the address, and nothing else. The GPS took us straight south – all the way across Washington and over the Oregon border. We headed through Milton-Freewater and started up into the mountains. And that’s when the phone started loosing service. If ANY of you know me at all, I have an awesome sense of direction – when guided correctly. But I ALSO have this weird, wacko-thing that makes GPSes freak out around me. Aka, they give me weird directions. So I prefer maps. Old-fashioned ones. But that’s beside the point – the GPS led me wrong once again.

We flew past a little driveway about a mile from where the GPS said we’d turn. “Teal wedding!” my Mom pointed to a sign I hadn’t seen. “Isn’t that it?” 

“Um… I’m not sure, actually! But I think it would say something about Tiffany and Chris…” Being the ever-so-smart second shooter that I am, I didn’t recognize the last name. Never fear, I’ve learned my lesson!

We continued on our merry way. 

“Turn left,” says le GPS. Okayyyyyy…

Up in the Pacific Northwest, there are these things called logging roads. And most of them are small, pothole-like-pockmarks-covered trails just wide enough for a semi and nothing wider. So you’d better cross your fingers and hope/pray that you won’t meet a logging truck coming the other way, because “slow” isn’t in their vocabulary, and neither is “yield,” and the combination is not so good. And, in case you were wondering, this was a logging road.

“Right, then! We’ll turn left.” So we did. And got kinda lost. And SUDDENLY the GPS decides to wake up and reveal that we’re a mile east of where we’re supposed to be. Alrighty then! Somehow we got out of the crisscrossed logging road mess and turn into the other driveway we’d passed… “I guess it IS the Teal wedding…”

After bumping along for about a mile, creating quite a dust bowl with our four-wheel drive, we happened upon a little cabin. Which (thankfully) turned out to be the house in which the girls were getting ready. So we ALL lived happily ever after – and I’m not still driving around in the Oregon wilderness. With a dumb GPS that has no service. 

Tiffany’s daughter, Madelyn, was just the most ADORABLE thing ever! Pretty sure I’ve never seen a cuter flower girl. We share the shame hate for “stingy bees!” and the same love for chocolate cupcakes. I guess you could say we were buddies.

And THAT’S what second shooters are *really* for – babysitting when convenient. In which case, I’m fully qualified. 

Bridal portraits in the woods were simply amazing – filtered sunshine and just the right kind of breeze.

Such cutes! 

Their wedding party was a blast – such fun-loving, chill, pretty/handsome people.

Pretty sure she KNEW she was the center of attention.

I love these next few portraits we shot… Gahhhhh. Dying in that sunlight.

And her veil!

I know they might not be “in” anymore (veils, that is), but I certainly loved shooting with one. 

It was just around this point that I discovered Madelyn’s absolute-freak-out-kind-of hate for “stingy bees,” as she calls them. And I’m sorry to say there were several in that hot field just before sunset… so we had a little bonding/tear-drying moment in between portraits.

Such details.
Oh my stars.

These next few dance scenes are coming close on my super-favorites list. You’ll see why.

Because it’s not every wedding you have an adorable Daddy-daughter dance… 

times two!

Driving home was awwwesome – coming off the mountain in Oregon was like looking at the Patagonia logo in real life. You can only imagine how beautiful it was to see this in 360.

And it WAS a long five hours after shooting a busy wedding, but Mom (who’d been checking out the cute Oregon town while I shot) and I rolled the windows down and sang our hearts out to 80s hits. The stars came out and there was absolutely NO internet between there and here – just flat fields, the occasional rolling hill, and no moon.

So much win. Perfect August wedding, perfect August night.

xoxo,
Hannah