Catherine and Jeff get married at the Ballard Bay Club

I have to start by apologizing for how long it has taken me to get this wedding online.  The wedding took place on August 13, but I have been so swamped that it has taken me until now to get it onto my blog.  It somehow slipped past me as I was blogging other weddings and photo sessions.  But no matter!

Meeting the Bride and Groom before the wedding

I started the day by meeting up with Jeff, his groomsmen and his and Catherine’s father at one of the groomsmen’s home in Bothell for a few “getting ready” photos, then moved on to Kirkland to do the same things with Catherine and the ladies.  The plan was for Catherine and her bridesmaids to take a limo to the Ballard Locks, where we would meet up with Jeff and the guys.  But the weather was being rather uncooperative with a spattering of rain, one of the few days all summer that wasn’t sunny, and Catherine decided that she would rather go straight to the Ballard Bay Club and do photos there.

Of course, by the time we arrived at the venue the rain had stopped – fickle wedding gods having fun with us!  But it was no big deal, the grounds at and near the Bay Club are beautiful and offer a lot of great options for photos.  We started right in with Jeff and Catherine’s “first look” and went from there, getting a nice selection of photos of the bride, groom and wedding party before we had to stop to get Catherine into hiding as the guests arrived.

The Wedding Ceremony

For those of you who have never been to the Ballard Bay Club, it is one of my favorite venues not only in Seattle but pretty much anyplace.  It offers the possibility of both indoor or outdoor ceremonies, and will easily hold a crowd of several hundred people if needed.  The location and view are spectacular, located just a short distance outside the Ballard Locks on Puget Sound with a great view across the Sound of the Olympic Peninsula and the Olympic Mountains  – at least when the clouds cooperate!

There are several different options for where to have an outdoor ceremony at the Bay Club, and Jeff and Catherine chose my favorite, one that only works for a wedding of maybe 100 people or less.  You can see by looking at the photo at the top of this blog just how spectacular the backdrop is for a wedding at this location.  And this was on a cloudy day, on a sunny day it is even better!

The bridesmaids were Cynthia Moon, Kami Wait, Julie Bradley and Betsy Gummow, and the groomsmen were William Wight, Christian Guirguis, Chris D’Addario and David Cohen.

The ceremony all went perfectly, and we soon had a brand-new married couple!

The Reception

Because we had not had time to take the family photos before the ceremony, we kept the wedding party and family in the area where the ceremony had taken place while the guests were directed indoors for appetizers and drinks.  Photos went quickly and it was soon time for Catherine, Jeff and the wedding party to make their “grand entrance” into the reception; which they all did with considerable style!  We then got Cat, Jeff and the officiant together so all of the legalities could be observed, and all of the paperwork completed.  And now the party could really get underway.

I’m not going to go through everything that happened over the course of the evening, since I think the photos will do a better job of telling that story than I would be able to write.  Please check out the photos below, I tried to include a good selection from the entire day so you can see what a great time everyone had.