This beautiful intimate wedding day at Quaking Aspen Ranch in Absorkee, Montana was not in the original plans, but ended up being the most perfect, tiny wedding.

Big Wedding Turns Into Intimate Wedding

Carissa, Jordan, and I met in 2019 when my kids and I were traveling through Oregon on our West Coast road trip. We met at their apartment for Thai food and they showed me around the city while we took some photos and ate wild berries. The wedding they were planning back then was a lot different from the one they ended up having.

When COVID-19 shut down the entire world, these two were about 6 months out from their wedding day. At first, no one knew how long the shutdown would last, and early on we were hopeful that “things would be back to normal” by the time their wedding rolled around.

Spoiler alert. Things were not back to normal.

So Carissa and Jordan went back to the drawing board, re-planning their entire wedding and moving forward knowing they would have to cut their guest list down by 90%.

What they ended up with was a weekend of glamping, fishing, and board-game-playing with their closest friends and family. They spent the morning of their wedding hiking and fishing with friends. Since the vendor list, along with the guest list, had to be cut down to bare bones, Carissa’s makeup artist walked her maid of honor through doing her hair and makeup over Zoom. She consulted a “hair map” to make sure she was pinning everything in place.

Their ceremony, shortly before sunset, was absolutely perfect and unique. They had each guest come forward to press wildflowers into one of their favorite books. The sun peeked out from behind the aspens and gave us the most perfect light.

At the end of the day, this wedding was not the one they had originally planned. But it was relaxed, intimate, and meaningful in every way.

Vendors:

Florals: Macs Floral of Billings MT

Venue: Quaking Aspen Ranch

   

Check out this sunrise elopement up on Loveland Pass in Colorado!