MY Elopement Day | Mount Rainier, WA | Celine Leina Photo

Man, I love my job so freaking much. I get to spend my time celebrating others, and capturing love stories and memories. I wouldn't change a single thing about my job even if I had the choice!! But I figured I'd mix it up on my website a little bit and share about my own elopement!!!

Christopher and I got married on June 19, 2021 on Mount Rainier, Washington. The whole day was truly so so beautiful and intimate and I love looking back on these photos! We hired Evan Bedlion Photography to fly out from Hawaii to come capture our day for us.

The day started off in a cabin for us to all get ready in. I stayed upstairs away from my dad and Christopher since I wanted to do a first look with both of them (separately though haha), and my mom and I got ready in the upstairs portion of the cabin while Christophers parents wandered back and forth. We had decided to only have our parents and my brother at our elopement, so the whole day was just so slow and easy for us.

A fun little story which is one of my favorite parts of our day, is a new friend we made named Adam. So as we know with elopements, we dont get to reserve a spot like we would in a venue. For elopements, you really just show up to a spot you love and do it wherever you want. Well, two days before our big day, Christopher and I were driving around the forest roads in the mountain looking for the perfect spot that called to us, and WE FOUND IT. But there was one little issue… there was a camper camping in the spot we wanted. We parked at the next camping ledge over, and decided to walk over to see the view from outside the car, and to also chat with the camper. Luckily, the camper was SUPER nice, and we all introduced ourselves which is when we learned his name was Adam. We spent a while chatting with him about the view and our wedding, when I finally got brave enough to ask him if he’d be willing to hold the spot down for us until Saturday, our wedding day. He so kindly let us know that he would try his best, but he might actually be heading out on Friday afternoon to do a motorcycle trip to Leavenworth. Well anyways, fast forward, we thanked him for his time and drove our way back down the mountain praying that he would change his mind and decide to stay until Saturday.

Fast forward again, we’re heading back up the mountain on Friday evening, the night before the big day, in hopes to run into Adam still camping at the spot. But with just our luck, we ran into some new campers in the spot. Christopher and I looked at each other with a little bit of defeat, but decided to do the same thing as last time with Adam, and we parked our car and walked over to the camp site. Immediately, we were met with a loud and low voice as one of the campers shouted our way “hey, what do you want?” We asked him if we could come over to chat with him for a second, and he said yes. Thank God. As soon as we got up there, we started to introduce ourselves when his wife interrupts us and asks “wait, are you Celine and Christopher?” We had no idea what to say except to nod because we didnt know how she knew. Then she ran into their car real quick and walked out with a cardboard cut out that read “Christopher and Celine, sorry I couldn’t hold the spot down for you, but I met John and Diana and they’ll keep it locked down for ya. -Adam”

John and Diana explained that they met Adam on the way up the mountain, and he promised to show them a cool ass camping spot but only if they promised to hand it over to us so we could get married there. HOW FREAKING COOL, AM I RIGHT?!

TLDR; when in doubt, meet people. They might bless you in cool ways.

This is a day I wish I could relive over and over again!