I don’t know about you, but for me one of the greatest things about stalking people on the internet is when they get married and I can all fall in love with them a little bit more! I’ve been virtually following Kaylah, aka The Dainty Squid, online for years (we share an obvious mutual affinity with colourful hair!) so when I saw her June wedding to long-term partner Jeff I was thrilled. I poured over their beautiful images for what felt like hours, soaking up every last beautiful drop. So, when their photographer Madeline Barr submitted them for us to publish I obviously had to say yes, and did so in about 5 seconds flat.
They were married in an actual ghost town, Two Guns, in Arizona with just a few select family members and friends as witnesses. “Our wedding was inspired by our love of travel”, Kaylah told us. “Jeff and I have been taking trips to the desert since the year we met. It’s become a huge piece of our relationship and we both kind of credit that first trip together for making us work. We learned so much about each other and really fell in love then. Our road trips bring us so much joy and are such a huge highlight to us that we could not think of anything more ~us~ than to get married in the desert.”
“Our wedding ended up being ¾ family road trip, ¼ wedding. Our closest friends and family
members all travelled to Arizona to celebrate with us. Everyone did their own thing leading up to the wedding. Some people flew in, some people drove all the way there and others did a
combination of those things but we all ended up together in Arizona. While the ceremony
happened on June 9th, we’d been having a grand old time the whole week. As a family, we
visited the Grand Canyon, explored desert ruins, and made tons of memories.”
The ceremony itself was at 9am (to avoid the intense desert heat) and was short, sweet and meaningful. Kaylah told Jeff she’d promise to take care of him (even though he’s the biggest baby ever when he’s sick!) and he promised to always buy her coffee when she’s cranky. They said ‘I do’, kissed, and then moved on to photographs.”
Oh yes these beautiful photographs! It doesn’t really get any better than this. “Getting our photos taken was the best part of the day”, she continued. “Jeff and I are both photographers but after four years together we still didn’t have very many photos of the two of us. I wasn’t sure how comfortable we’d be getting lots and lots of photos taken but it was one of the most fun things ever. Maddie, our photographer, made us feel so comfortable. I feel like my highlight of the day should be ‘exchanging vows’ but when I think back to our wedding day, getting photographed is the first thing that pops into my mind. It was just bliss.”
Since they didn’t book a traditional venue, rent anything or really purchase anything aside from the bride’s BHLDN wedding dress, their biggest expense was their photographer, but she was absolutely worth every single penny! After the photo session they all headed over to The Wigwam for a low key reception with their nearest and dearest. “I love that we didn’t plan too much”, she concluded. “We mostly spent a lot of time in the run up talking about how excited we were. We didn’t finalise some of the details, like where specifically we’d exchange vows, until the day before. We were able to visit the ghost town with everyone (their first time seeing it other than in photographs) and pick out a spot together. It’s one of my favourite memories.”
