Wedding at Groom Creek Schoolhouse

They say that rain on your wedding day is supposed to be good luck. Though no matter how many times we all kept telling Mackenzie that, we knew it wasn’t really making her feel any better.  Her and her soon to be husband, Delaney, (yes I said Delaney- talk about confusing, having the exact same name as the groom at the wedding you’re working! haha) had been keeping an eye on the weather forecast for weeks, and it never said anything at all about rain. Sure enough though, it not only rained, but POURED on their big day. We’re talking thunder, lightning, and rain so thick it was hard to see when I was driving to their venue deep in the pines at the Groom Creek Schoolhouse.

The whole time Mackenzie and her bridesmaids were getting ready, we were all looking out the window watching it come down. Everyone kept reassuring her that it would stop soon, but we still had to come up with a Plan B. They decided they were going to have to move it inside, even though the entire wedding was set to be outside. The setting was up in the beautiful Prescott National Forest at the Groom Creek Schoolhouse, surrounded by huge pine trees. I could see why they chose the location with it’s beauty, so I knew how disappointing it was to them to think they were going to have to move it (and all of their beautiful decorations) inside to the schoolhouse.

Mackenzie had her maid of honor call Delaney and ask him what they should do. He just kept telling her to wait a little longer to see if the rain cleared up. Eventually he was determined and just said “We are having it outside.” I could see everyone questioning his decision, seeing that it was clearly still pouring out there…

Mackenzie in her beautiful, white, wedding dress and the rest of us gathered everything and went outside to head to the ceremony.  All of the guests took their seats and the bridal party got into position. Then you know what happened?

It. Stopped. Raining.

Just like that, when the music and ceremony started, the rain stopped, the clouds cleared, and the sun came out. It was truly a surreal, heavenly moment. I think just about everybody breathed a huge sigh of relief.  The ceremony was beautiful and went absolutely perfectly in the end!

Another reason I was nervous about the rain, is that I wasn’t sure how we were going to be able to get any decent photos of them if it was dark and pouring outside. But after the ceremony the lighting ended up being PERFECT with a beautiful glow from the sun backlighting them. The sunsets after a storm are always the best! As you can see in these images, this location in the Prescott forest made it even more magical because the sun was peeking through the gorgeous pine trees behind them, and they looked like they were straight out of a wedding magazine!

The reception and rest of the night ended up going perfectly and everybody had completely forgotten about the bad weather scare from earlier. Mackenzie and Delaney were able to keep their entire wedding outside like they wanted and danced the night away under the stars with their closest family and friends. We ended up getting SO many amazing pictures from this day, but for now, here are just some of my favorites! I hope you love them all as much as I do!