Today I want to tell you the story of how Jada and Kaitlyn planned their perfect spontaneous adventure elopement on the banks of the Chattahoochee River in Atlanta. There are certain words and phrases that folks sometimes use in their first email to me that make me sit right up in my chair with my ears perked. (I also acknowledge that I may spend too much time alone with my dogs while I edit photos.) Kaitlyn’s first email to me had words like “non-formal” and “nontraditional” and “bamboo forest”.
((Random aside/tangent: Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to make photos in bamboo forests several times, and while bamboo is a gardener’s nightmare, it’s a photographer’s dream. The light bounces around in there in magical ways. It gets softened and it wraps around things.))
Back to the story: Once I met with them and they shared their plan to hike to the river, have a short and intimate ceremony, and then float down the river with their families afterward, I was hooked. I would have followed these two anywhere.
The day began before sunrise at their house, where everyone was finishing their pancakes and coffee when I arrived. Quickly, everyone was dressed and they all grabbed their backpacks and paddles and we headed to the river. It’s about a mile to hike down to the Chattahoochee, and it’s a beautiful hike. The sun was peeking through the trees, and we took the route that follows a creek. We took our time and enjoyed the morning.
Once there, we picked the perfect spot and just like that, they were married. Laughter and tears and rings and kisses and hugs. It was time to inflate the flotilla. Jada and Kaitlyn had hand painted each raft with something special for each passenger, and they loaded them with flowers and drinks and snacks for the ride.
Dragging the rafts down to the water, perhaps the most hilarious wedding reception event I’ve ever witnessed was the boarding of the rafts. The riverbank was a little steep and there was no graceful way to get in the rafts. Methods employed were: wade in and hop on — fall backwards from the riverbank — step in and flop. The Chattahoochee is a cold river (often as low as 50 degrees), since the water is released from the dam at the bottom of Lake Lanier, so there were some shocked gasps, maybe a scream or two. I may have been secretly glad that I was hiking back out and not floating with them. Although it was hard to say goodbye. It had been one of my favorite adventures and I didn’t really want the day to end.
There are a lot of great takeaways from this adventure. First, Jada and Kaitlyn are amazing humans. Obviously. And, importantly, a wedding is a celebration of the creation of relationships that can take many forms. The form that this wedding took is whimsical, adventurous, and creative, just like Jada and Kaitlyn are.
Congratulations Jada and Kaitlyn! Making art for other artists is always the perfect blend of terrifying and thrilling. Thanks for trusting me with your amazing story.
