Amado and Ryan Get Married at Spinasse

This was one of the first weddings that I photographed in Summer 2024, and I’m quite embarrassed that it has taken me so long to write a blog post for it. Even though I had delivered all of the photos to Ryan and Amado just a week after the wedding, and selected all of the photos for the blog post soon afterwards, I never got the post written.  In my defense, it was right at the beginning of a rush of weddings and engagement shoots that continued into September, but I still feel like an idiot that it has taken me this long.  Sigh……

As with most of my weddings since Covid, I had not met Ryan or Amado until the day of the wedding, with all of our pre-wedding communication being done by email or phone.  Amado and Ryan wanted to take some photos before the ceremony at a different location than the ceremony, and after some discussion we decided that Volunteer Park would be a great place for those photos.

The day of the ceremony we met at a house near Volunteer Park that Ryan had rented for the day.  Along with Amado and Ryan, there were numerous family members who were there to join us for our photo session at the park.  Once everyone had arrived, we made the short hike down the road to the park to start with photos.

As well as various human family members, a very important non-human was there as well; Ryan and Amado’s Golden Retriever, Tommy.  I love dogs, and Goldens are my favorite breed, so I spent a little time petting Tommy.  Tommy could not have cared less about my attention; he was excited to be in the park and wanted to go explore!

We spent a bit over an hour at Volunteer, firat taking a variety of photos with the family and then just me, Ryan, Amado and Tommy wandering and looking for good photo spots.  You’ll see a selection of those photos below.

Then it was time to head for the location of the wedding ceremony, a restaurant named Spinasse, located on Capitol Hill just a few miles from the park. However, though the restaurant was close by, I discovered that that parking that day was very tough to find.  There was a large Gay Pride event going on that day and Capitol Hill was flooded with participants.  I ended up having to park several hundred yards from the restaurant.  Which would not be a big thing if I wasn’t carrying two large bags full of my photo gear!

Once at Spinasse, I took a few more photos with the grooms both inside and outside in the area nearby, and then a bunch of photos with all of the non-family who had not been at the park with us earlier.  And finally it was time for the wedding to begin.

We were located in a relatively narrow room with a long table running down the center.  The ceremony was held in a space at one end of the table.  Fortunately there were no attendants or it would have been very crowded!  Tommy was there as Best Dog, and carried the wedding rings to his boys.

Once the ceremony was finished Spinasse put on an amazing multi-course dinner that lasted for well over an hour.  I was only booked for the first part of the evening, and once the dinner was well underway it was time for me to leave.

Following is a selection of photos from the day. More photos from other weddings can be seen by exploring my blog at this link.