Brandie & Greg get married at Ray’s Boathouse

Just over a month ago I received an email from Greg Luebbert asking about my availability to photograph his upcoming wedding, to be held on March 24.  The name sounded quite familiar; really, how many Luebberts do you know?  I was the photographer at Mathew Luebbert and Colleen Salmi’s wedding at Golden Gardens about a year and a half ago, and I was pretty sure that one of Mathew’s brothers was named Greg.  So I emailed him back to tell him that I did have the date available, and to ask whether he was in fact Mathew’s brother.  He confirmed that Mathew was in fact his brother, and that he had really liked the work I had done for his brother’s wedding and was hoping I would be able to photograph his wedding as well.

I love to work with the family of people whose weddings I have photographed; it is always fun to have a chance to catch up with these couples and their families.  Greg gave me the run down on the wedding plans; that it would be at Ray’s Boathouse in the Northwest Room and there would be ~25 people.  I love shooting weddings at Ray’s, and have photographed quite a few weddings and receptions of varying sizes there over the last 30 years.  The Northwest Room is a building that sits right next to the main restaurant, but is reserved for weddings, receptions, and other kinds of parties and events.  Very cool spot, especially after a big remodel to the outdoor deck area about a year ago.  You can see the venue review I did on Ray’s by clicking here.

Greg is a software engineer at Microsoft, which meant that catching him for a phone chat was rather difficult.  We traded emails for awhile and after a week or so finally managed to find a time we could actually talk!  We discussed various possibilities for photos the day of the wedding, realizing that most of them were very dependent on the weather.  Which tends to be notoriously unpredictable in late March!  But we came up with what we thought was a good game plan regardless of what the weather decided to do on the wedding day.

Pre-wedding preparations

As it turned out, the day before the wedding was cold, wet and windy, and the morning of the wedding some areas in Seattle woke up to find a couple inches of snow in their yards!  I was pretty sure that at best we were going to have a cool to cold overcast day, and that it was likely that we’d have a solid rainstorm that afternoon.

But the weather gods had other plans!  As the day went on, it got brighter instead of darker, and by the time I headed for Ray’s at ~3PM there were even hints of blue sky at times.  And it only got better as the day progressed.  I got to Ray’s and found that neither Brandie or Greg had arrived yet, but Mathew and Colleen showed up at almost the same moment that I did, so we were able to catch up a bit.  More family members started to show up, and a short time later Greg and Brandie got there.

From there it was typical pre-wedding chaos for awhile.  Brandie needed to get changed into her wedding dress, and various flowers, etc. needed to be set into place before the guests arrived.  Time before the ceremony was short, so I knew that we would not have much time for any posed photos until after the ceremony.  But once Brandie was dressed we were able to set up a first look photo session for her and Greg, which you will see below.  There was just enough time for me to get a few photos of Brandie alone and then Greg and Brandie together where we could take advantage of some very nice window light (actually door light), then it was time for Brandie to disappear while the family and guests and took their seats in preparation for the ceremony.

The Ceremony

Once the guests were all in their seats the processional began.  Greg’s son Joe escorted the officiant down the aisle, followed by Greg and his daughter (and flower girl) Evelyn.  Finally Brandie and her father David made their way to the front of the ceremony area and the ceremony got underway.  The wedding was officiated by Brandie and Greg’s friend Melody.

The ceremony area is a covered/tented deck that attaches to the main building and is suspended over the water, and in cool weather has side curtains to help keep it warm.  But the front of the area is open to a wonderful view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula, and with the nice weather we had the backdrop for the ceremony was spectacular.  The ceremony went smoothly, and Greg’s fears of dropping the ring into the water proved to be unfounded!  A short time later Bradie and Greg were pronounced husband and wife and we had a brand-new married couple!

The Reception

Once everyone had left their chairs, th staff at Ray’s quickly converted the deck into a very nice outdoor reception area, and more staff began passing appetizers.  I will readily admit that one of my favorite things about shooting a wedding at Ray’s is their great food.  They always do an incredible job and today proved to be no exception.

Because we had not had a chance to do many family photos before the ceremony we took advantage of cocktail hour to get photos of various family groups.  Right after we started taking pictures, a Seattle FD fireboat motored into place in front of the restaurant and began firing their water cannons, sending streams of water high into the sky.  I don’t know if they could see that a wedding was taking place or they were just putting on a show for the restaurant, but the effect was a lot of fun and I tried to work the fireboat into some of the photos (as you’ll see below).

Dinner was served next, and proved to be every bit as good as the appetizers.  At this point the sun was getting close to setting, and after Greg and Brandie had a chance to enjoy some dinner I suggested that we might take a few minutes to get some sunset photos of the two of them.  We climbed into my car and drove a short distance to a very small section of public beach located maybe a couple hundred yards from Ray’s, a location that I have used many times for beach photos, but that is relatively unknown except to people who live in the nearby area.  We had the entire beach completely to ourselves and had a fun time getting some nice sunset photos, which you’ll also see below.

Then it was back to Ray’s for more time with family and friends.  Various toasts were offered to the newlyweds by their guests, Brandie and Greg cut their wedding cake and served each other some (in a very civilized fashion), and finally the new couple shared their first dance as husband and wife.  Once they completed their dance, Brandie’s father David came onto the floor for the father/daughter dance, followed by Greg and mom Jean for the mother/son dance.  Greg’s father David (yes, both dads are named David!) then joined the couple on the dance floor and soon more guests were also involved in the dancing.  Several of the guests were busy blowing bubbles onto the dancers, with Joe and Evelyn among the most enthusiastic of the “bubble blowers”.

It was a wonderful evening, and it was obvious that everyone there had a great time.

Enough of my rambling, scroll down and check out the photos (if you haven’t done so already).