Bridget and Gabriel have an Elopement Wedding at the Seattle Muni Court

I had the pleasure of being the photogapher at the elopement wedding of Bridget and Gabriel. This wedding took place at the Seattle Municipal Courthouse, a location where I typically shoot up to 20 weddings every year.

For this particular wedding, I arranged to meet Bridget and Gabriel early at the Courthouse. I like to meet couples early for Courthouse weddings for a couple of reasons. First and most important, it lets the couple sign in early and be at the top of the list for their wedding ceremony, as soon as a judge becomes available. Second, it gives us some time before the wedding ceremony to take some photos without other waiting couples becoming inadvertent “photo bombers”, and making it difficult for us to get good photos.

On this particular day this strategy worked perfectly. Gabriel and Bridget were the first couple to check in, and we headed straight to the rooftop balcony to get some photos. It was a very nice day, and we had fun being able to take photos without other couples waiting to take our place on the roof.

Then it was back to the waiting area, where we were ablr to get a few more photos before we were called to see a judge. Gabriel and Bridget had decided that they wanted their ceremony to be a suprise, so they had no family or friends in attendance. Usually friends or family members act as the witnesses of the marriage (two witnesses are required in WA), but in this case I acted as one of the witnesses, and a court eomployee as the other. This is not a frequent occurence for me, but I have been a witness at several dozen (at least) weddings during my years as a photographer.

Following are a few photos from the wedding day. You can see more on my blog at this link.