What if your wedding didn’t have to fit into one day?
For Carlynn and Jonathan, traveling from Ohio to the Olympic Peninsula meant getting to experience this place in two completely different ways. They wanted beautiful scenery by the sea, but more importantly, they wanted their first day to be centered around celebrating with their family and friends. They wanted incredible food, a relaxed timeline, and plenty of time to actually enjoy being with the people who had traveled across the country to celebrate with them.
But they also wanted an adventure.
Instead of trying to squeeze a ceremony, 20 guests, dinner, beach portraits, forest trails, and a mountain hike into one marathon wedding day, they gave themselves two. Day one was about getting married and celebrating with their people. Day two was about waking up as newlyweds and heading into Olympic National Park together.
Over those two days, they got to experience three of the landscapes that make this corner of Washington so incredible: beach, forest, and mountains. And because they weren’t racing from one location to the next, they actually had time to enjoy them.
WEDDING TEAM
Agate Beach Lodge
Meire Catering
Angel Crest Gardens
Day One: A Relaxed Wedding at Agate Beach Lodge
Carlynn and Jonathan gathered with around 20 of their closest friends and family at Agate Beach Lodge, a private coastal property on the Olympic Peninsula. With forest, open space, and access to the beach, it gave them the beautiful coastal setting they had envisioned while also providing a comfortable place for everyone to spend the day together.
From the beginning, they wanted their wedding day to feel relaxed. There wasn’t a huge list of traditions they needed to check off or a packed timeline moving everyone from one thing to the next. Instead, there was space to celebrate, wander down to the beach, take photographs, and most importantly, actually spend time with the people who had traveled all the way to Washington to be there.
That slower pace is something I love about intimate weddings. With around 20 guests, you can actually talk to everyone who came. Dinner can stretch a little longer. Portraits don’t have to take you away from your family for hours. The day has room to breathe.
A Five-Course Dinner With Their Favorite People
That relaxed approach carried right into the evening. Instead of a traditional reception, Carlynn and Jonathan brought in Meire Catering for a private-chef experience featuring a five-course dinner with wine pairings.
For an intimate wedding, I LOVE this idea. When you’re celebrating with 20 people instead of 150, dinner can become one of the experiences of the wedding rather than simply something that happens between the ceremony and dancing.
Everyone could sit together, enjoy incredible food and wine, talk, laugh, and celebrate without feeling like they needed to rush toward the next thing on the timeline. It felt elevated and special while still fitting perfectly with the laid-back wedding day Carlynn and Jonathan wanted.
And when the evening came to an end, they didn’t have to wonder whether they’d missed out on the adventurous part of getting married on the Olympic Peninsula. We had an entire second day waiting for us.
Day Two: Their First Adventure as Newlyweds
The second day felt completely different from the first, which was exactly the point.
There was no ceremony to get to, no dinner waiting for us, and no guests wondering when Carlynn and Jonathan would be back. They could simply wake up married and spend the day exploring together.
We started among the trees on a forest trail before heading higher into Olympic National Park for a hike at Hurricane Ridge. Suddenly, the coastal scenery from the day before felt a world away. The beach and sea gave way to alpine trails, enormous mountain views, and layer after layer of Olympic peaks.
This is one of my favorite things about Olympic National Park. The landscapes here can feel completely different from one another, and a two-day wedding gives you enough time to experience that variety without turning your wedding into a race across the peninsula.
Do You Have to Wear Your Wedding Clothes on Day Two?
Carlynn and Jonathan made one choice for their second day that was a little different from what I usually recommend: they decided not to wear their wedding attire again.
If you ask me, I’ll almost always encourage couples to throw those wedding clothes back on. When else are you going to get the chance to hike through the Olympic Mountains in your wedding dress or suit?! Wearing your wedding attire in a completely different landscape can also give you an incredible variety of photographs from the same celebration.
But I can appreciate the other side of it, too.
For Carlynn and Jonathan, Day 2 wasn’t meant to feel like another round of wedding portraits. They wanted photographs of themselves as they normally are—hiking together, exploring a new place, and soaking in those first post-wedding feelings without all the formality of the day before.
So the wedding clothes stayed behind and the casual clothes came out. Day 1 documented Carlynn and Jonathan getting married surrounded by everyone they loved. Day 2 documented Carlynn and Jonathan simply being themselves, except now they were newlyweds!
There’s something pretty special about having both.
Beach, Forest and Mountains Without Racing Through Your Wedding Day
One of the biggest reasons couples choose Olympic National Park for their wedding is the incredible variety of landscapes. Within one trip, you can explore wild beaches, mossy forests, turquoise lakes, waterfalls, rivers, and alpine mountains.
Technically, you can fit several of those landscapes into one wedding day. I photograph full-day elopements that do exactly that. But the more you add, the more intentional we need to be about driving times, hiking distances, daylight, meals, guests, and how much time you actually want to spend enjoying each location.
Olympic National Park is huge, and there are no roads cutting directly through the middle of it. A location that looks close on a map can take a surprisingly long time to reach.
Carlynn and Jonathan didn’t have to worry about fitting everything into a single timeline. Their first day gave them the coast and plenty of time with family and friends. Their second gave them the forest and mountains, with nowhere else they needed to be.
By the end of the two days, they had experienced three completely different sides of the Olympic Peninsula without their wedding ever feeling rushed.
Why Choose a Two-Day Olympic National Park Elopement?
A two-day elopement isn’t necessarily about trying to do more. In a lot of ways, it’s about giving yourself permission to do less at a time.
You get more space to be present with your guests instead of disappearing for hours of portraits. You can sit down and enjoy an incredible dinner without watching the clock. The following day, you can head into the park without worrying about getting back for the reception.
It’s especially great for couples who feel torn between two different visions for their wedding. Maybe you can’t imagine saying your vows without your parents and closest friends there, but you also dream about hiking into the mountains together. Maybe you want an amazing dinner and a relaxed celebration, but you also want your wedding to feel like an adventure. Or maybe you came all the way to Olympic National Park and simply don’t want to choose between the coast and the mountains.
You don’t necessarily have to.
Giving each experience its own day can completely change the pace of your wedding.
Is a Two-Day Elopement Right for You?
I especially love two-day elopements for couples who want to include family and friends while still having a private adventure together. They’re also a great option if you’re traveling to Washington and want to experience several different parts of Olympic National Park without spending your entire wedding day in the car.
And your two days don’t have to look anything like Carlynn and Jonathan’s. You could have your ceremony and dinner on Day 1 and hike at sunrise on Day 2. You could spend one day in the mountains and another on the coast. You could wear your wedding clothes again – or leave them behind and make the second day feel more like your first big adventure as a married couple.
That’s really the beauty of it! There’s no formula you have to follow.
For Carlynn and Jonathan, the right balance was a coastal wedding with around 20 of their favorite people, an incredible five-course dinner, and then an entirely separate day spent exploring the forests and mountains of Olympic National Park.
They came from Ohio dreaming of beautiful scenery by the sea and ended up experiencing the coast, forest, and mountains together.
Planning Your Own Two-Day Olympic National Park Elopement?
If you’re looking at everything you want to include in your Olympic National Park wedding and wondering how you’re supposed to fit it all into one day, the answer might simply be: don’t.
A two-day elopement gives you room to celebrate with the people you love without sacrificing the adventure that made you choose Olympic National Park in the first place. It gives you more flexibility, more time in each place, and—most importantly, more space to actually experience your wedding instead of rushing through it.
As a local Olympic National Park elopement photographer, I help couples figure out which locations work well together, build timelines that account for the realities of traveling around the park, and create wedding experiences that feel full without feeling packed.
If you’re dreaming about a wedding that includes your favorite people, incredible scenery, and plenty of time to adventure together, I’d love to hear what you’re dreaming up.