When you picture an adventurous Olympic National Park elopement, you might imagine just two people disappearing into the mountains with backpacks and hiking boots. And while I LOVE those kinds of wedding days, they aren’t the only way to elope in Olympic! You can invite your favorite people. You can have a beautiful ceremony surrounded by family and friends. You can hike to a waterfall, wander through the forest, explore the mountains, and still have plenty of time to celebrate together. Having guests doesn’t mean giving up the adventure!
Stephanie and Kaylan’s spring wedding was such a perfect example. They traveled from California to Olympic National Park with around 20 of their closest people and built a wedding day that included a ceremony at Lake Crescent, a hike to Marymere Falls, time celebrating with their guests, and an evening adventure at Hurricane Ridge. Basically: you don’t have to choose between your people and the wild places you want to explore.
WEDDING TEAM
Hair: Kayla Scheffer
Makeup: Liz Kellerman
A Wedding Ceremony at Lake Crescent
Stephanie and Kaylan started their wedding celebration surrounded by their closest friends and family at Bovee’s Meadow along Lake Crescent. With a group of around 20 people, choosing the right ceremony location was especially important. Not every location within Olympic National Park can accommodate a group this size, and one of the things I help my couples navigate is finding a place that works not only for the scenery they’re dreaming about, but also for their guest count and the current park regulations. Bovee’s Meadow was a perfect fit!
There’s room for a larger group to gather while still being surrounded by everything that makes Lake Crescent so incredible—the mountains, forest, and that impossibly blue water just steps away. It also meant their guests could be part of the ceremony without needing to tackle a big hike to get there. And once they were officially married? It was time to go exploring.
Hiking to Marymere Falls After Their Ceremony
After celebrating with their guests, Stephanie and Kaylan traded their ceremony spot for hiking shoes and headed into the forest toward Marymere Falls. This is one of my favorite ways to structure an Olympic National Park wedding with guests. Your family and friends don’t necessarily have to follow you for every part of the adventure. Your ceremony can happen somewhere accessible where the people you love can comfortably join you, and then you can carve out time afterward to explore together. For Stephanie and Kaylan, that meant heading beneath the towering trees and mossy forest surrounding Lake Crescent before making their way to the falls. Suddenly the day shifted from celebrating with everyone they loved to having a little space to themselves.
Yes, Your Olympic National Park Elopement Can Have Guests AND Be Adventurous
There’s a misconception that choosing an elopement or micro wedding with guests means sacrificing the adventurous part of the experience. It absolutely doesn’t! In fact, splitting the day into different experiences is one of my favorite ways to plan these celebrations. You might have an accessible ceremony with your family, then hike to a waterfall together afterward. You could spend the afternoon celebrating with everyone and sneak away to the mountains at sunset. Maybe you exchange private vows somewhere along a trail before meeting your guests for the official ceremony. Or you could turn the whole thing into a two-day experience. Adventure doesn’t have to mean asking 20 relatives to hike five miles into the backcountry. And it doesn’t have to mean hiking ten miles yourselves, either (unless that’s your thing of course, then I’m absolutely down for the adventure!) Stephanie and Kaylan paired an easy-to-access ceremony location with a hike to Marymere Falls and another smaller walk in the mountains later that day. They got the guest-filled celebration and the adventure.
Do You Need a Permit to Get Married in Olympic National Park?
If you’re planning to get married inside Olympic National Park, this is an important piece of the planning process. Under Olympic National Park’s current 2026 rules, wedding groups with more than five people total need to apply for a Special Use Permit. And that number includes everyone involved, not just your guests. The couple, photographer, officiant, videographer, witnesses, and guests all count toward your total group size.
Your guest count can also affect where you’re allowed to hold your ceremony. Weddings taking place within designated wilderness are limited to 12 people total. Groups larger than 12 need to request frontcountry locations such as roadside areas, overlooks, and beaches. The park currently allows a maximum of 50 people for a wedding permit, and only a handful of locations can accommodate a group that large. That’s one of the reasons Bovee’s Meadow worked so well for Stephanie and Kaylan’s group of around 20 people. They could have everyone they wanted at their ceremony while choosing a location appropriate for their group size.
How to Apply for an Olympic National Park Wedding Permit
The process itself is relatively straightforward:
- Fill out Olympic National Park’s Special Use Permit application.
- Submit the completed application to the park’s Special Use Permit office.
- The park reviews your requested date, location, group size, and plans.
- If approved, you’ll receive your permit and the conditions for your ceremony.
Applications can currently be submitted up to one year before the wedding date, and Olympic National Park recommends submitting at least one month in advance. There is currently a $50 application fee.
Wedding permits are issued for a two-hour timeframe, including photography and videography happening in the same general area as the ceremony. The park also doesn’t reserve or close your ceremony location to other visitors, so even with a permit, you’re still sharing these beautiful places with everyone else enjoying the park. Because park regulations can change, I always recommend checking the National Park Service website directly while you’re planning rather than relying on an old blog post or Pinterest graphic.
CHECK CURRENT OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK WEDDING PERMIT REQUIREMENTS –>
Ending Their Adventure at Hurricane Ridge
After Lake Crescent and Marymere Falls, Stephanie and Kaylan eventually traded the forest for the mountains. We headed up toward Hurricane Ridge, where we took a smaller walk together surrounded by huge views of the Olympic Mountains. This is another reason I love photographing elopements here! Adventure doesn’t have to mean mileage.
There are places throughout Olympic National Park where relatively short walks can take you into spectacular scenery. That flexibility is especially helpful on wedding days with guests because you can spend plenty of time celebrating together without giving up that experience of heading somewhere wild afterward. And Olympic decided to add a little extra excitement to Stephanie and Kaylan’s evening. While we were exploring, we spotted a mama bear and her two cubs from a safe distance – which was a pretty unforgettable addition to an already incredible day!
And Then…Fish & Chips
After getting married beside Lake Crescent, hiking to a waterfall, exploring the mountains, and spotting bears, there was really only one appropriate way to finish: Fish and chips at a local pub. And this might be one of my favorite things about elopements and micro weddings. The day doesn’t have to follow a traditional wedding timeline. You can build it around the experiences you actually want to have. Gather your favorite people. Get married beside a lake. Go hike to a waterfall. Explore the mountains. Then pile into a local restaurant and eat fish and chips together. Sounds like a pretty fantastic wedding day to me!
Planning an Olympic National Park Elopement With Guests
If you’re dreaming about getting married in Olympic National Park but can’t imagine doing it without your family and friends there, you don’t have to choose. The key is planning your locations and timeline around both your guest experience and the adventures you want to have together. Think about how far your guests can comfortably walk, which ceremony locations are permitted for your group size, how much driving you want everyone to do, and which parts of the day you’d like to experience privately as a couple.
Stephanie and Kaylan brought around 20 people along for their celebration and still managed to fit in Lake Crescent, Marymere Falls, Hurricane Ridge, wildlife sightings, and a pub dinner. Your wedding can have the people. It can have the adventure. And it can absolutely have both. 🙂
Ready to Plan Your Own Olympic National Park Elopement?
As a local Olympic National Park elopement photographer, helping couples figure out these logistics is a huge part of what I do. From choosing a ceremony location that works with your guest count to figuring out where we can sneak away for an adventure afterward, I help build wedding days that make the most of this enormous park without making the experience feel complicated. If you’re dreaming about an Olympic National Park wedding with your favorite people and plenty of room for adventure, let’s start planning.