While this is a styled shoot, Sophie + Rachel are a real life couple and they are darling! This west coast inspired styled shoot takes out the traditional elements of a ceremony to inspire couples to stray from the traditional to create a ceremony that is entirely their own. We’re excited to see some of these unique ideas brought to life with future couples!
The Inspiration
The inspiration behind this styled west coast elopement is to showcase a totally different approach to a couple’s wedding or elopement – out of the ordinary and unique. Many weddings and elopements are rooted in tradition with a rigid timeline, however many couples are veering away from this and creating their weddings and elopements to really reflect them as a couple. In this elopement there is no exchanging of rings or vows, rather we feature a hand fasting ceremony, which has Celtic roots, and is the binding of two people. The way the couples hands are placed, is where their pulses line up. In essence, where they become one as their pulses sync up and beat in unison. Also featured is a black and tan ceremony, in which a stout is poured slowly into a cider to create two layers. The couple did this together, one poured the cider and the other poured the stout. This was chosen to represent the combining of their two lives into one.
An outdoor location was chosen right on the ocean because we really wanted to capture the west coast vibe. Neck Point Park in Nanaimo is on south Vancouver Island and was the perfect location in all it’s rocky and mossy glory. We really wanted to capture all the different elements and different spots in the park.
This west coast styled elopement is filled with charm, a little bit of edge and a lot of love and laughter. Sophie and Rachel are a real couple and this really came through. They were the perfect couple for our styled shoot and their laughter comes through in the images. We were really thinking outside the box and wanted to show to couples that their day can be planned however they want it to be – literally anything goes!
