Winter Wedding | Blue Sky Ranch Yurt

The fabulousness of this wedding started before the actual nuptial date.

The mother of the groom reached out to me on behalf of her son and his bride-to-be. Unusual, right? Except, when she explained the circumstances, I was immediately, like, YES I’LL SHOOT YOUR SON’S WEDDING!!! The couple lives in Africa and each works as an economist. He’s American (his mom has pink hair, his dad is a metal artist, and they raise llamas) and She’s German (speaks flawless english and, I realized after I saw her inspiration board on Pinterest, has timelessly awesome style). Their plan? To have this ceremony in Utah, where his parents live; but then have small receptions around the world, celebrating in different countries where their friends live as they enjoy a wanderlust-y & lengthy honeymoon.

I mean, really?!?! I LOVE love love that, for some reason, *these* are the types of people that find my work. It makes me feel like I’m doing something right! Anyway, they are truly, truly fascinating people: brave, passionate, intellectual, and inspirational. And I couldn’t wait to meet them both on their wedding day.

True to their unique and adventurous spirits, they choose a yurt at Blue Sky Ranch for their winter wedding (about 10,000ft up); and true to my luck, a blizzard exploded on the day they were due to marry. Already we’d been warned that we might have to take snowmobiles to the site, and although that sounded a bit scary with all of our gear, I was also thinking, ‘who does this?! Like, who gets opportunities to snowmobile up the side of a mountain to a remote yurt in the middle of a blizzard?!’ So I just rolled with it, and, to be honest, I was THRILLED by the opportunity to shoot bridals in falling snow (a dream of mine). The fact that the bride was also totally into it despite wearing a short-sleeved, short dress was even more awesome — she just juiced up her ensemble with a jacket, hat, tights, and lace umbrella!

We rolled up to the yurt as the men were starting a log-fire in a pit in the snow. GAME ON, right?! For the next several hours, I was alternately laughing, smiling, crying, and, overall, completely & totally moved. All the parts of the day — even things that had sounded suspect on paper (they were all getting ready together in the yurt, then doing the First Look also in the yurt, then rearranging everything to host the ceremony also in the yurt, then again rearranging everything for the reception also in the yurt) turned out to be the epitome of charming and utterly perfect. One glance at the way they look at one another, and how you cannot also be smitten?!