{"id":15862,"date":"2019-12-28T22:17:56","date_gmt":"2019-12-29T06:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tomellisphoto.com\/blog\/?p=15862"},"modified":"2019-12-28T22:18:48","modified_gmt":"2019-12-29T06:18:48","slug":"excellent-elopement-wedding-at-king-county-courthouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tomellisphoto.com\/blog\/excellent-elopement-wedding-at-king-county-courthouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Excellent Elopement Wedding at King County Courthouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jocelyn & Austin’s Elopement Wedding at the King County Courthouse<\/h1>\n

On December 10 I received an email from Jennifer.\u00a0 She and fianc\u00e9 Austin were planning a courthouse elopement in Seattle on December 18, and they wanted to know if I was available to be their photographer. I did have the date open, so we started a dialog about their plans.\u00a0 It was not initially clear whether they were getting married at the Seattle Municipal Courthouse or the King County Courthouse, but that was cleared up quickly.<\/p>\n

The courthouse at which they were getting married was important not just so that I would know where I needed to be to do the photography.\u00a0 While they are located only a couple of blocks apart, the two courthouses operate very differently for wedding ceremonies.\u00a0 At the Seattle courthouse it is a “first come, first served” operation so it is critical to be there early.\u00a0 But at the King County courthouse you can make a reservation for a specific time, and judges are available there to perform a ceremony later in the evening than at the Seattle courthouse.\u00a0 Jocelyn and Austin had a 6PM ceremony scheduled.\u00a0 The later time was important since business hours at the KC courthouse end at 5PM, meaning the building is fairly empty at 6PM.\u00a0 Which meant that we would have more opportunities for photos inside the building without lots of potential photo-bombers!<\/p>\n

We decided to meet in the building lobby at 5:30PM, to allow us a bit of time for some photos before meeting with the judge for the ceremony.\u00a0 While the weather forecast for the day had been for rain and wind, it was actually quite calm with no rain when I arrived at the courthouse.\u00a0 Austin and Jocelyn arrived shortly after I did, and we briefly discussed taking a few photos outside since the conditions were so good.\u00a0 But they decided that they’d rather do photos indoors\u00a0 at that point since we were fairly short on time, and we’d try to do some outdoor “street shots” after the ceremony.<\/p>\n

So we spent about 15 minutes in the elevator lobby taking photos of Jocelyn, Austin and their three friends who had come to witness the wedding.\u00a0 The lobby is actually pretty nice for photos, with very nice tile floors and some cool murals on the walls, as you’ll see in the photo below.\u00a0 After we got a decent variety of photos we headed up to the 7th floor to meet with with judge who would perform the marriage.<\/p>\n

When we reached the correct courtroom we found that another couple was already there.\u00a0 They had arrived late, and still needed another 10-15 minutes to finish their wedding ceremony.\u00a0 So we hung out in the hall and I had a chance to find out a little about Jocelyn and Austin. LOL!\u00a0 That’s one of the crazy things about courthouse elopements; most times I don’t meet the couple until right before the ceremony, and know very little about them or their backgrounds.\u00a0 So the short delay was nice since we got to know each other at least a little bit.<\/p>\n

Once the other couple had completed their wedding Judge Rosen brought us all into the courtroom. He then took Jocelyn and Austin back to his office so they could fill out all the legal paperwork prior to the ceremony, and I tagged along to get a few photos of the process.\u00a0 Once the paperwork was completed we all came back to the courtroom and Judge Rosen performed the wedding ceremony.\u00a0 As with most elopements it was quite short, and about 10 minutes later Austin and Jocelyn were legally married!<\/p>\n

We wanted to get some outdoor photos so we hurried down to the lobby, with the plan being to walk up to City Hall for some photos in the courtyard there as well as on the street nearby,\u00a0 but while we had been inside the courthouse, the predicted rain had made an appearance.\u00a0 Still not windy, and not raining too hard, but definitely raining.\u00a0 The newlyweds were still game to take some photos, so we headed up the hill to to City Hall.\u00a0 Unfortunately between us we only had one rather small umbrella, so I had Jocelyn, Austin and their friends head for City Hall while I ran to my car to grab a couple of good big umbrellas so we could get our photos without getting soaked.<\/p>\n

Once I got the umbrellas we spent about 30 minutes playing around in the rain near City Hall.\u00a0 It was actually quite fun, and we got some good photos.\u00a0 But see for yourself, just scroll down the page!<\/p>\n

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