Andrea & Marty’s Wedding in Stehekin

Last Saturday I flew out to Stehekin, WA for Andrea & Marty’s wedding. It was totally cool! Stehekin is at the top of Lake Chelan, a 55 mile long lake in Eastern Washington. Access to Stehekin is very limited. There are no roads leading into the Stehekin Valley. You can hike in from the Northwest, run up the lake in a ferry or fly in on Chelan Airway’s de Havilland Canada Beaver float plane. Needless to say, planning a wedding up there presents one with unique logistical challenges! Andrea totally had it covered though. Everything was planned perfectly and the weekend was a smashing success.

The 60 or so guests made a weekend out of it and stayed at several of the cabin’s for let around the area. While the majority of the guests took the ferry up there were a few that made the journey in a more traditional means. Laura and Noosha hiked in 19 miles from Rainy Pass!

There’s no cell phone service or any land line telephones in Stehekin so the whole family was packing FRS radios and it was so funny listening to the chatter! They were all using witty handles and making light of the day’s festivities. At one point when Andrea was getting ready I remember her saying

The Bride is smiling, Over!

It was just so appropriate to the mood of the entire day.

Andrea and Marty had the ceremony at Silver Bay Inn at the edge of the lake. The Stehekin Pastry Company hosted their reception and baked their fabulous cake. The family run Pastry Company really pulled out all the stops and gave Andrea and Marty a great party!

I arrived on the plane Saturday morning and met Marty’s Dad, brother and other family members at the landing. We had breakfast at the landing restaurant where Sue, Andrea’s mom, found me and gave me a lift over to The pastry company a mile up the road. Andrea was getting ready to go on a hike while Marty and his guys were headed off to do a little fly fishing in the Stehekin river before the wedding.

My good friend and fellow photographer Jack Young followed me up lake on the ferry and second shot the pre-wedding and ceremony with me. While I was out with the guys fishing he was at Silver Bay Inn catching some great shots of the family preparing the wedding venue. It’s always great to have a second shooter along to catch the stuff I can’t. I love shooting second as it’s fun to approach the day from a different angle. Jack got some killer shots! Thanks Jack!

I received this great email from Andrea late last night as I was working on the images for their slideshow:

Hi Jeff,

We’re all riding high here talking about the weekend - the best weekend ever - period! We hope you enjoyed your time in Stehekin, and we can’t thank you enough for doing what you do so incredibly well. We can’t wait to see the photos - and everyone else is thrilled to see them too. Everyone was blown away by your slideshow….

Our schedules are finally pretty open for meeting up to have a post wedding chat so please let us know what dates you have available over the next week or so.

Thanks again!

Andrea

Check out their slideshow!