The One Hour Wedding

pacific northwest wedding

Mar 27

Written By a fist full of bolts

A Last minute elopement…

Portland, OR

Old Laurelhurst Church

Our daily lives have been so impacted by what’s happening in our world right now. Our lives have been put on pause, routines disrupted, plans cancelled; and for good reason, but that doesn’t make having to cancel or postpone your wedding any easier. Yes, we must stay inside and social distance, its so important - but our hearts can still ache for all of our couples who’ve spent so much time, energy and money into planning the happiest day of their lives.

Hannah and Austin have been planning for their April wedding since they got engaged early this fall. Everything was ready to go - the timeline was perfect. We were locked and loaded for this event & then I got the FaceTime call. We knew it was coming (schools had already been cancelled, toilet paper was out of stock in the stores) and it was time to make the final call. They had to postpone their wedding, but still wanted to get married. We had to act quickly since we knew it would just be a matter of time before the shelter in place call was officially made. More on this later…

This decision was more emotion for us because I’ve (Melanie) known Hannah since she was a baby. Our moms were best friends and we were raised like sisters. Anyone who knows me knows that Hannah is my favorite person on this planet. I’ve watched her grow up and now that she’s grown, she’s often the first person I call when I need advice or someone to listen or if something funny happens… I could go on and on. When Hannah and Austin first started dating we went out to breakfast to meet him and I immediately knew that he was the one. They were absolutely perfect for each other. The four of us took a trip to New York City on a whim last winter and this was when Austin told us that he was planning to propose later that fall. Seeing all of the hard work on planning get put on pause was a tough.

They had just a few days to prepare for their elopement. They reached out to their pastor and he was in (officiant, check!), he offered them their church (location, check!) and then their maid of honor and best man were in ( witnesses, check!). We were in, but we had to bring our children which worked out great because we gave our 3 year old a point and shoot film camera and many of his images are included in this blog post.

Enjoy!