Backyard Wedding in Fresno | Central Valley, California

Want to know a phrase I never thought I’d say while shooting a backyard wedding in Fresno in June? “Wow, it’s really nice outside!”

This past weekend, I had the honor of shooting my cousin Logan’s wedding! I first met her fiancé back in February when I shot their proposal/engagement session in San Francisco, and just couldn’t love Josiah more! He is so sweet, kind, and has a great sense of humor! They really are wonderful together!

Tim and I headed down to Fresno on Friday morning, and checked in to our hotel before heading over to the venue. We somehow picked the one hotel that was housing a HUGE group of retired Marines for their annual reunion. That hotel was hopping!

Logan was getting married in her sisters front yard. Guys, this place is GORGEOUS! They live just in the outskirts of Fresno and have a beautiful ranch style home with a grand driveway entrance with horses grazing the property. And seriously, while it was a warm day, there was a slight breeze with trees in just the right places to give some much appreciated shade.

Logan and Josiah had an alternate first look where they stood back to back and said a prayer together. Such a beautiful moment!

I loved so many things about the ceremony- they had a guitarist play as they walked down the isle, and they surprised everyone with a special foot washing. Something else very special was during Logan’s personal vows, when she inserted Josiah’s name into the scripture verse “Love is patient”. She inserted his name for each time the word love was used. Seeing Josiah’s reaction, and his parents...man, what an emotional moment to hear just how much your son is loved and admired by the one he loves so much!

And then there was the bee. The one that wanted to interrupt the pastor, wanted to fly in the mouth of one of the groomsmen, and yeah, even liked me for a few minutes!

And then came my favorite part of the evening, when we got to shoot the sunset photos! I’ll let most of them speak for themselves (the light coming through those trees was INSANE!!) but probably the most epic part of the night came when we headed out to shoot at one more location around the corner. It was on the side of the road at a busy intersection, there was a huge line of big tall bushes just covered in pretty flowers. We had fun taking shots there, and after a few minutes, Josiah started waving his hands frantically. I figured he was just saying hello to wedding guests, but he had actually seen a guy drive by in a VW bus and had hoped the guy would turn around- and he DID!! This was amazing for a bunch of reasons- Josiah has a dream of owning one one day, so he was like a kid in a candy store when the guy happily agreed to let us use it for a few photos. Me? Well, let’s just say I am all for a good photo op, and this was incredible!

I am so happy for both of you, thank you so much for including me in your special day!! 😘

Wedding dress from Madeliene's Bridal BoutiqueHair by Scissor hands SalonWant to see other small weddings/elopements I have photographed? Click HERE!