The ferry crossing was over in a flash and so began the traumatic journey on the I5 into Seattle. The sometimes 8 lane highway is no fun and everyone seems to have a death wish. Lanes go off from the right and left and there is no rule as to which side you overtake on…it is hell! The best part about this journey was that while in Nanaimo Alex had downloaded a new voice onto the GPS…Why?? I have no idea! Anyway, this voice is a 90 year old Hungarian grandma who is more indecisive than me! She says “you know, if you can, try to stay left and try to stay right”. It is funny the first few times but in the middle of Seattle at 6pm in rush hour traffic it is not so funny! Crisscrossing the 8 lanes trying to follow the GPS’s vague instructions we finally made it to camp.

As soon as we arrived Alex went to check us in and he can’t help but tell our story. Lorena (the lady checking us in) loved it and immediately signed up to the news letter on the blog and encouraged us with her support for the story. She really made us feel excited about the start of our official tour of mainland USA and Alex promptly invited her along to the wedding. We settled in for the night and by the morning had decided the campsite should be called ‘The three ways’ as it was ideally placed at the end of the airport runway, near the railway and directly on a highway!

Anyway, after a surprisingly good nights sleep we went to the store to get some food shopping and looked forward to meeting our wedding team. We have been communicating over the last few weeks with a few of Seattles finest wedding specialists and could not wait to meet them all! Heres the run down of the peeps that made our day possible!
Tawsha at Wedding Preview Events had just recently held one of her fabulous events in Seattle which we unfortuately missed due to our journey home.She is Queen of contacts in the area and pointed us in the right direction to find the rest of our team!
Kelli at Shindig Events is based in Seattle and helped us find the wonderful Jonas (more on him in a minute) and also put us in touch with BellaUmbrella who lent us a fabulous parasol to use in case of rain on the big day. Kelli is an absolute superstar and helped co-ordinate everyone to get the job done!
Eileen from Modern Mood Design is such a gem and made me the most beautiful bouquet full of autumn colours and smells and Bernadette from Diamond custom Floral made Alex a boutinniere to die for!
Jonas Seaman was our photgrapher for the day and Mary his assistant. He captured so many special moments of the day and has created some wonderful images.
Alex found Eric Warn our lovely reverand with a most beautiful service and he was happy to be a part of our day. His attention to the special details in the service made it one we will relive for the rest of our lives.
Alex also spend a few days sweet talking Sue who is in charge of Pike Place Market events into letting us hold the wedding in the market rather than in the park across the street. She eventually gave in to his charms and it was agreed we could hold the ceremony under the pergola at the North entrance to the market.
We also had some help with contacts and location suggestions from Aaron and Alison of Inklessbliss which was a real help and they really supported us in the early planning days.

We grabbed a coffe in the first ever Starbucks (accidentally) and went to meet up with Jonas, Kelli, Eileen and Eric on the Wednesday night at the pig. The pig is a brass statue of a pig (surprise surprise) in front of a fish stall where they throw the fish and yell and hollar to each other. The market was bustling with traders and plenty of customers and we all 6 of us wandered to the pergola to suss out our location. We chatted and discussed flowers, pictures and generally got a plan together for the day. We all gelled instantly and we knew it was going to be a great day and a real pleasure to work with these guys!
We invited everyone back to meet Peggy and then said our goodbyes until tomorrow…wedding day number 8!
We really were excited about this one. The support we had received was outstanding and made the planning of the day so easy and what was more important was that we had some friends we could invite along to the wedding!!!

Find out all about the wedding here!