Sabrina & Michael’s wedding at the Seattle Courthouse

I was contacted a couple of months ago by Sabrina, who lives in the Monterrey area in California.  She and her fiance Michael were planning to get married at the Seattle Courthouse on February 20, and they wanted to know if I was available to photograph their wedding.  We talked for a bit, and I learned that Michael grew up in Seattle, and they had decided that this was where they wanted to get married.  But they wanted to keep it a small affair, just family and a few friends, so they decided to get married at the Courthouse.

I was delighted to be asked, and we started planning how we could maximize their chances for good photos on the wedding day.  But as anyone who lives in Seattle knows, the weather in late February is notoriously unpredictable, and much more likely to be cold, wet and/or windy than sunny.  So we came up with a couple of different scenarios depending on the weather on the day of the wedding, with the most optimistic having us taking photos at Kerry Park.

As it turned out, a week before the wedding date the weather forecast was for less than ideal outdoor photo conditions – rain and wind.  But knowing that our Seattle forecasters are frequently rather inaccurate when predicting the weather more than 24 hours in advance, I still had hope that we’d at least get a cloudy but dry day on February 25.  Sure enough, as the date got closer the forecast kept changing, and we not only ended up with a dry day, it was sunny and quite warm!

I met with Sabrina and Michael at Kerry Park a couple of hours before we were due at the courthouse, and we had a very nice session first at Kerry, then at Parsons Garden, then back to Kerry to get some photos we were unable to take earlier due to crowds.  After finishing at Kerry, we headed across town to the courthouse, where we were met by Sabrina and Michael’s family.  The courthouse has a very nice deck/observation area on the roof, and we took the whole group there for a few photos before the ceremony.

The ceremony took place in the Jury Selection Room, probably the only space at the Courthouse with enough room for the entire group.  Beautiful view from this room, looking to the south and west with Mt Rainier and the Smith Tower as backdrops.  We wrapped up the photos by going back to the roof for some sunset shots, then the newlyweds and the rest of the group headed off to Palisade for dinner.

Here are a few photos from the day, I hope you enjoy them!