“It all began again at The Moab Diner. After dating in college for three years and being separated for eight, Evan was in Los Angeles and Kelley was in San Francisco. While on a work trip in Moab, Evan found out that Kelley was driving through Utah on her way to a friend’s wedding in Colorado. One happenstance breakfast at the diner in June 2019 was all it took to know they were meant to be back together forever. A little over a year later, the couple was engaged and researching venues. All signs were pointing back to where serendipity struck – gorgeous Moab. We knew we wanted outdoorsy to show off the incredible landscape, and between our guests largely coming from Colorado and California it was the perfect meeting ground. Luckily, we stumbled upon Under Canvas Moab and couldn’t believe our luck in being able to do a camp buyout for a September weekend. Living in Los Angeles, planning a wedding across state lines was not easy. At first, we set out to do it ourselves and worked hard to create our vision. We created festival-style invitations with Hatch Show Print, sourced a DJ, and even made a trip out to Moab to taste test different catering options from town. Not too far in, we decided in order to successfully navigate the desert conditions as well as the long distance, we needed a wedding planner. It didn’t take us long to find one who perfectly understood our ideas and who had previous experience with the campsite –
The Gatherist, Emmily Jones. Emmily really understood our not-so-traditional requests and was such a boon in helping us create our minimalist aesthetic using as many local vendors as possible to bring our vision to life. One of those amazing local vendors Emmily brought to us was the incredible Valen Hunter from
Tellurian Events. Val worked closely with us to create the perfect mood board for our floral arrangements. She completely captured the beauty of the desert and the images show it all. Our favorite design was the circle of juniper branches, smokebush, and dried grasses we stood in on the slick rock during our afternoon ceremony. Part of our minimalist and casual desires were not wanting a wedding party or even a professional photographer. We provided Kodak disposable cameras to our guests so they could document their weekend and share later. Last but not least, there was the food. Knowing our crowd were eaters, barbecue was the only choice. So our friends at Spitfire BBQ made some of the best food at a wedding we’ve ever had. The images, remember earlier when we said we didn’t want a wedding photographer? Our close friends weren’t having that, so for our wedding present they hired a photographer through Emmily and we honestly could not have been happier. In working with
Erin Thunell,
Erin Elizabeth Photo, we tried to not sound rude with our biggest instruction being that we did not want to see her. We wanted the images to feel candid and not staged, to capture the details and ambience. She listened to every word, thanks to her talent we’re here. We could not be happier with how our wedding turned out and owe it all to Emmily Jones and her assistant Rachel Lassen. Her specific hires of Valen and
Erin made this Moab love story a dream come true. From the early breakfast at The Moab Diner, to getting married in the Moab desert, to now planning a trip with our one month old baby Scottie May Simonitsch. Thank you Moab, Utah.”
