Mount St. Helen’s Anniversary | Skamania, WA | Ande+Chris

Who said celebrating an anniversary or elopement had to be boring? I can’t tell you how much these two mean to me. Ande and Chris were the first couple that were willing to take a chance on me and let me capture their wedding this time last year.  As most weddings do, it ran behind and they felt like maybe they didn’t have the perfect day. I remember when I had them over to view their gallery they were both in tears. What they said has stuck with me all this time and has been a huge influence on me in trying to push my work and see where it will go. “Even though we felt like we didn’t have the perfect day, looking at these photos we feel like we had the perfect day”.

Of course when they reached out about anniversary photos I jumped on the opportunity. But I knew I wanted to do something epic, something I had not seen before. The first location that popped into my mind was Harry’s Ridge. Is it a three hour round trip hike? Yes. Is it a four hour round trip drive from Portland Oregon? Yes. Did they have to change in full wedding attire on a ridge? yes. Were they down? Absolutely! I told them to bring their friends, bring the cooler, ill bring the jams and lets have a good time! I also brought a close photographer friend with me Naba Zabih, who helped assist in preparations and make sure we got the most out of the evening. We had the whole place to ourselves. They laughed, they cried, they were caught underneath a ruby like sunset. On our trek back in the darkness we shared quite moments gazing up at the stars, toasts with beverages left in the cooler and thinking that this is what life is all about.