California Micro Wedding at Sequoia Retreat Center

Jennifer & Craig

The Couple and Their Decision to Plan a California Micro Wedding at Sequoia Retreat Center

When it comes to elopements and intimate weddings, the first rule is that there are no rules. I always tell my couples you can get married whenever you want, wherever you want, with whoever you want by your side!

For their California micro wedding, Jen and Craig threw all the rules out the window and planned their day, their way.

The couple first met in fall 2017 on the dating app, OkCupid. They were each about to get off the app, but, just before they did, they found each other! They joke that they had each developed certain ‘rules’ for how they did the whole online dating experience, but each broke their rules when they met each other, so having an untraditional wedding was not out of the question for these two.

Jen and Craig’s wedding day vision started out with Jen’s wish to get married in a treehouse. Craig’s favorite forest is the Redwoods so they happily settled on a California micro wedding at Sequoia Retreat Center, a beautiful forest wedding venue near Santa Cruz, CA.

Bride and groom dancing on the beach in Santa Cruz, California

From a Micro Wedding Ceremony in the Woods To Dancing on the Beach at Sunset, This Is How To Get Married at Sequoia Retreat Center Adventurously

Jen and Craig’s California micro wedding was my last intimate wedding of the year and the weather couldn't have been any better! This was my first time photographing a wedding at the Sequoia Retreat Center and I immediately fell in love with the giant trees at this forest wedding venue.

The couple had mentioned that they were also interested in getting some beach wedding photos after the ceremony, so I did a bit of research and found some really awesome rocky beach locations on the coast near the venue.

After their forest wedding ceremony with family, the three of us adventured onto the beautiful beach where we got the most beautiful sunset light! We headed back to the cabin for an intimate dinner reception and ended the evening with one of my personal favorite moments of the night where the couple and their loved ones all drummed alongside each other.

Jen and Craig, thank you so much for trusting me to photograph your beautiful day! I am so honored to have been a part of your love story.

- Henry

Kind words from the couple:

Henry photographed our wedding amongst the Sequoia trees in California. We have nothing but great things to say about him and the quality of his work. We recommend him!

We contacted Henry after following him on Instagram for a bit. His images were unique - different than the images we saw from any other wedding photographer. We were looking for a wedding photographer who could make us feel comfortable being in front of the camera for a full day - and who could capture our love and personalities.

Henry was exactly what we were looking for. His happy and genuine personality shined through in all his communications with us. And he was just as happy and genuine in person on the day of our wedding. He made us feel like we had been friends with him forever, which made us feel comfortable in front of the camera.

Henry worked extremely well with our wedding planner. He was organized and provided us with many resources throughout the wedding process. Wedding planning can get stressful but he was the one thing we didn’t have to stress about because we completely trusted him.

On our wedding day, Henry was able to keep within the timeline, especially when we had many family portraits in a short period of time. For our couple’s shoot post-wedding, Henry took us to a beautiful spot on the beach that he found and had gone to in advance. We had so much fun while taking our photos on the beach! We laughed, danced and felt pretty.

I didn’t think it was possible to enjoy my wedding day as much as I did, and it was largely because of Henry.

We received our sneak photos so far. Not only were we speechless with how they turned out, but impressed with the number of photos we received. We thought we would only get one or two photos but there were so many to choose from! We think our photos look they are from a magazine (we know we’re biased).

We found cheaper photographers than Henry, but we splurged to have him because we value him and the time/effort he puts into his work and relationship with clients. Henry was worth his price and we would gladly pick him again. We can’t wait to see our final wedding album to pick out multiple photos to hang in our house.

We will cherish our memories with Henry and the breathtaking photos he captured of us, our family/friends, the venue, and our special day.

Thank you, Henry!