Mandy and Rob get married at Ray’s Boathouse

Back in early May I received a phone call from Rob.  He and his fiancé Mandy lived in Florida, but were coming to Seattle in early July for a small intimate wedding at the Ray’s Boathouse Northwest Room (one of my favorite wedding locations in Seattle).  The catering people at Ray’s had given Rob my name as a photographer they had worked with many times.  We talked a bit about Ray’s and my experience there, as well as other nearby locations that might be a possibility for off-site photos either before or after their wedding ceremony.  Rob decided on the spot that he wanted to hire me to be their photographer, and we traded emails and phone calls over the next two months as the wedding date got closer, discussing photo ideas, the ceremony, other locations for photos, etc.  About a week before the wedding date we decided that I would meet Rob, Mandy and their families at Ray’s shortly before the ceremony for a few dressing room photos with Mandy, and that after the ceremony the three of us would go to the Ballard Locks for an off-site photo session before returning to Ray’s so Mandy and Rob could join their families for dinner.

The week before the wedding had been quite sunny and warm, but July 9 turned out to be fairly cool and overcast.  When I arrived at Ray’s it was quite cloudy, and even seemed to be spitting lightly as I drove into the parking lot.  After locating and meeting Rob for the first time I went straight to the “dressing room” to meet with Mandy, and we took a few photos while the families were getting seated for the ceremony.  Mandy looked simply amazing, as you will see in the photos below.  This was a very small wedding, with a total of 11 people present including the officiant.

The ceremony was held on the deck between the Northwest Room and the main restaurant, with a beautiful backdrop of Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula.  Boats and paddle boarders could be seen on Shilshole Bay.  It was a short and simple ceremony, with Rob and Mandy reading hand-written vows to each other before exchanging rings.

At the conclusion of the ceremony the newlyweds met with their families and had a few appetizers before we climbed into their waiting limo for the short drive to the Ballard Locks.  It was now sprinkling very lightly, though not enough to pose any problem for photos.  Likely because of the weather the normally large crowds at the Locks were much smaller than usual, and as we walked through the park I was happy to see that most of my favorite photo spots were wide open for our use.

Mandy and Rob had visited the Locks briefly a couple days earlier, but they did not really know about all of the possibilities there for photos.  We were working on a bit of a tight schedule, since we needed to get Mandy and Rob back to Ray’s for dinner, and we also wanted to try for a few photos at a small public beach very near Ray’s before my time was up.  Rob and Mandy are both pretty hard-core explorer types and are in really good shape, and we moved very quickly through the park to different possible places for photos.  I tried to give a good representation of our session in the photos that you will see below.

After our fast tour of the park we jumped back into the limo and proceeded to the beach I mentioned earlier.  The time remaining on the limo was pretty much gone, so we got a few photos with the limo and then Rob sent him off.  We made our way down to the beach.  It was a very low tide so the beach was pretty expansive.  Very few people there, but we were told that a large group of paddle boarders was due to be coming in to the beach in another 10-15 minutes.  No matter, we quickly got some nice photos on the beach and prepared to head back to Ray’s.  It is only a walk of a couple hundred yards from the beach to Ray’s, and it only took a few minutes to make the short hike.

We wrapped things up with a few photos of Mandy and Rob with their wedding cake.  They did not want to do the actual cake cutting yet, but we faked it for the photos.  I loved their cake topper!  Both Mandy and Rob work in the tech industry and spend a lot of time on their computers, and the topper was great, just scroll down to see it.

That’s all for the post.  Please check out the photos below, and I hope that you will leave some comments.