Liliana and Greg’s Quarantine Elopement Wedding In Their Car

This is a wedding that very nearly did not happen, or at least nearly did not happen as planned!  It is a great story of perseverance by Liliana and Greg, who had decided to get married and in spite of numerous challenges did not give up and made it happen.

The Planning Stage

I first heard from Liliana in mid-May.  She and fiance Greg wanted to get married sometime soon, but she did not yet have a firm date.  She asked about my availability on a couple of different dates; due to the lockdowns all of my spring weddings had been postponed or canceled, so my schedule was wide open.  We talked about some possibilities for how she could do a wedding under current conditions, and left it at that.

I didn’t hear from Liliana for a couple of weeks and figured she had changed her plans.  But then on May 31 I got an email from Liliana.  She wanted to know if I was available for the following Sunday, June 7 for an evening wedding to be held near their home in Snoqualmie.  I said sure, but I did a quick check on the forecast and saw that we were supposed be in the middle of a rainy pattern.  Liliana wasn’t concerned because it looked like they would be able to do their ceremony at the Club at Snoqualmie Ridge, so we talked about timing and I sent her a contract.

But just a couple days later I got another email from Liliana.  The forecast still looked like it was going to be very wet, and the venue had fallen through.  She and Greg had decided to postpone indefinitely to a date sometime during the summer.  My reply was that I completely agreed; if they wanted to have an outdoor ceremony it wouldn’t be much fun to have it in the rain, better to wait for better conditions and a venue that they liked.  We said our goodbyes and I figured that was it for now, and that I might hear from them again sometime during the summer.

So I was really surprised when on Saturday morning I got an email from Liliana asking if I still had Sunday afternoon/evening open.  The weather forecast was still awful, especially in Snoqualmie where it was supposed to be raining hard all day. So the location of the ceremony had been changed.  The wedding would now take place at 3PM rather than in the evening, and in Marysville at the home of the officiant.  Well, actually outside the home of the officiant; Liliana and Greg would be inside their car (and out of the rain) while Len Smolen (the officiant), Xio and Dax (the witnesses) and I would be outside the car under umbrellas.  Then after the ceremony we would drive back to Snoqualmie to take some photos at Liliana and Greg’s house.  LOL!  I had never done a wedding quite like this before and it sounded like fun, so I told Liliana that I was in.

The Wedding Day

Sunday morning it was dark and rainy as forecast.  But by noon the rain had lessened and the sky was getting a bit brighter.  My home is ~40 miles from Marysville so this didn’t mean much, but at least it was encouraging.  As I left for the wedding a bit after 2PM it was now cloudy but dry, and I was feeling quite encouraged.  When I reached Len’s house in Marysville it was quite nice, with broken clouds and occasional sun.  Liliana and Greg had not yet arrived, so I scouted the area a bit looking for some good spots for photos.  Len’s wife Kathleen spotted me, and she and Len joined me outside their house while we waited for Greg and Liliana.  Len and I had worked together at a number of weddings, so we were able to catch up a bit.

A few minutes later Liliana and Greg arrived, along with Xio and Dax.  This was my first time actually meeting the bride an groom, so we took a few minutes to get to know each other while we discussed how the ceremony would proceed.  Even though it was not raining, Liliana really liked the idea of getting married inside their car, so we went with that plan.  Len set up a stool just outside the passenger window of the car, and performed the ceremony from there.  I was able to move around and get photos from different angles during the ceremony; rather challenging since the windows were very reflective, and I literally only had a small window to shoot through to see Liliana and Greg. The ceremony went perfectly, and once it was completed Greg and Liliana got out of the car to sign their paperwork.  We took a few photos, and then headed off to Snoqualmie.

For those who are not familiar with the area, it is almost 60 miles from Marysville to Snoqualmie.  Snoqualmie is right at the base of the Cascade Mountains, and often has very different weather conditions than Seattle, which is about 25 miles to the west.  By the time I reached Greg and Liliana’s house it was after 5PM and the weather was quite different.  Not raining, but very dark clouds that completely blocked the view of the nearby mountains.  Liliana and Greg live very near the Snoqualmie Ridge golf course, and they had picked out a couple of places for us to take photos with nice views of Mt. Si and the Snoqualmie Valley.  As we were taking the photos it continued to get darker and we felt a few raindrops.  We moved back to their house to take some photos in the backyard, and the rain finally showed up in force.  Liliana and Greg took most of these photos while under an umbrella, but it soon was raining hard enough that even an umbrella was not enough, so we called it quits. All in all a very successful and enjoyable day, especially since just a couple days before it looked like it was not going to happen!

Following are a selection of photos from the day in chronological order.  I hope you enjoy the photos, and please leave your comments below.