Amy and Kyle Elope at the Snohomish County Courthouse

As with many (most?) of the elopement weddings that I photograph, I heard from bride-to-be Amy just a few weeks before her scheduled elopement wedding.  She and her fiance Kyle were planning to get married at the Snohomish County Courthouse in Lynnwood, and were interested in hiring me to be their photographer.  I have photographed weddings in numerous courthouses in the Seattle area, but I had never been to the Lynnwood courthouse; fortunately this didn’t bother Amy.  Amy was also interested in possibly going to the beach in nearby Edmonds for some photos either before or after the ceremony.  I have done quite a few photo shoots in Edmonds and know the area pretty well, and thought that would be a good idea.  After Kyle and Amy talked it over they called to tell me that they wanted to hire me, so we were set.

The wedding was on a Wednesday, and as at most of the courthouses in the area, weddings take place shortly after the courts closed for the day, typically between 4:30-5PM.  This particular day traffic from Bellevue to Lynnwood was looking pretty ugly, so I left considerably earlier than I usually would, planning to kill time reading if necessary.  As it turned out I got there in plenty of time.  Or at least I thought that I did!  I found the doors of the courthouse were locked, but spotted a guard inside who let me in.  I explained why I was there, but he told me that all the judges had already left for the day.  This was not looking good!

I checked my phone again for the address of the courthouse, and I was in the right place.  But I saw that there was another search result for the Lynnwood courthouse; a second courthouse that was actually a County court.  Realizing that I must have gone to the wrong court I tried to call Amy but had no luck.  Fortunately it was less than a 10 minute drive to the correct court and I arrived at almost exactly 4:30.  When I entered the building I found Kyle and Amy, who had also just arrived and were still waiting for a judge to be available.  Since we had never met in person, I had a chance to talk with the couple and find out a little about them.  Which is always one of my favorite parts of being a wedding photographer!

About 10 minutes later a judge was finally free, and we had a very nice short ceremony, with both Kyle’s and Amy’s mothers there to act as witnesses.  Once they were legally married, we talked over plans for photos in Edmonds.  Amy and Kyle grew up nearby and knew just where they wanted to go, so we got into our respective cars (including the two moms) and off we went.

I was a little suprised at the location that Amy chose for photos, since I usually go further to the south where there is a beach that allows you to walk right along the water.  But we had some fun taking photos, and I made the best use I could of the possible backdrops.  It was rather windy, and we had to keep getting Amy’s hair out of her face during photos.  Which actually led to some rather amusing photos!

Here are a few of the photos from the day.  You can see more photos from other weddings by clicking on this link.