Dawn and Wyatt’s Amazing Airplane Hangar Wedding

I have known Wyatt almost my entire life, and consider him a very good friend.  His family lived next door to mine from the time he was maybe six years old, and because we were very close in age we went to the same schools, and shared many classes, all the way through high school.  And of course as next door neighbors we played together often as kids.  I learned how to waterski behind his family’s old Chris Craft, and we spent time doing everything from crawling through the woods pretending to be soldiers to bouncing on another neighbor’s trampoline.

When Wyatt asked if I’d like to photograph his and Dawn’s wedding I was delighted!  It isn’t that often that I get to photograph the wedding of a friend, and (for me at least) those are the most fun weddings to shoot.  I had met Dawn several times, and really liked her.  She and Wyatt had ridden bikes to several Mariners games with me and some other friends, and I could tell that Wyatt had found a really great woman with whom to share his life.

They have a great story of how they got together, and I’ll give you the condensed version here.  They originally met in Hawaii maybe 25 years ago; Wyatt was there doing some biking with friends and Dawn was the girlfriend of one of these friends.  As far as I know, they did not meet again until a couple of years ago when Wyatt was picking up some mail at the post office near the home he had recently bought, where by great happenstance Dawn works as a postmaster.  Wyatt’s full name is Forrest Wyatt Cook, and the package he was getting was address to Forrest Cook.  Dawn recognized Wyatt, and said something along the lines of “Wait a minute, your name isn’t Forrest, it’s Wyatt!” which caught Wyatt completely by surprise, as he had not yet recognized Dawn, and had no idea how she would know his name.  Dawn let him hang for a minute and then had mercy and explained who she was and how they knew each other.  Did I mention that she has a wicked sense of humor?  Anyway, they got to talking, discovered that they both still like biking, set up a date and the rest is history.

Back to the wedding!  Wyatt lives in a house located on a private runway near Bonney Lake.  He worked for years as an airline pilot, and has owned several small airplanes. Wneh he bought his current house he decided that we’d like to have his own hangar, where he could keep his current plane plus one that he was working on rebuilding.  Wyatt is a big thinker, and after some consideration he decided that if he was going to build a hangar we was going to do it right and build a really nice hangar, and better that it be on the large side than too small.  I’m not sure of the exact dimensions of the hangar, but it is roughly 100ft square, and is gorgeous.  You’ll see some photos below.

Since he had this amazing hangar, why not have the wedding in it?  Nicer than most wedding venues, and quite a unique place to have a wedding!

The day of the wedding was beautiful; sunny and warm, about 70 degrees.  Pretty much perfect!  I drove to Wyatt’s a couple of hours before the planned ceremony time to get as many of the posed photos taken as possible before the guests arrived.  Again, some of these photos are below.  Dawn looked simply incredible in her wedding dress!

We started photos with a First Look for Wyatt and Dawn, and moved on from there. The grounds around Wyatt’s house were excellent backdrops for photos.  And of course Wyatt’s airplane had to figure prominently in at least a few of the photos!  The wedding party was made up primarily of family members, including Dawn’s two sons and Wyatt’s son and daughter.  We wandered around looking for good places for photos, then went back to the hangar area to meet up with other family members who were not part of the wedding party and get more group shots.

Then it was time for Dawn to disappear while the guests were all seated inside the hangar for the ceremony.  I have worked in literally hundreds of wedding venues, and can honestly say that very few have been nicer than Wyatt’s hangar after the decorating job that they did.  Add in the excellent weather conditions and it would be very difficult to have a more perfect setup for a wedding.

Once the guests were seated it was time for Dawn’s arrival.  And this was done in a way that I had never heard of before, much less personally experienced.  And I have photographed well over 1200 weddings!  Because Wyatt lives alongside a private airfield, many of his neighbors also own aircraft of different types.  And one of them has a small helicopter.  Wyatt and Dawn arranged for this neighbor to fly Dawn right to the entrane to the hangar for her Grand Entrance.  The only people who knew what was going to happen were the wedding party, a couple of other family members, and the chopper pilot.  So it was quite a surprise when the helicopter landed outside the hangar, where Dawn’s sons weer waiting to help her get out and then to walk her down the aisle.

OK, I’m going to pretty much stop here.  You don’t need to read anything more from me!  The rest of the wedding and reception went great, and everyone had a wonderful time. I’ve posted a selection of photos below that captures the events of the day.

More weddings on my blog page at https://www.tomellisphoto.com/blog/topics/weddings/