Danielle + Curtis: Loon Lake Elopement

I’ve know both Danielle and Curtis for many years now and earlier this summer, they had booked a family session with me. As the date was approaching and we were emailing back and forth to finalize details, I get a response from Danielle saying, “Soooo….. call us crazy but we’re sorta kinda kickin around eloping in like 3 weeks.” The second she sent me that, I literally laughed out loud because I’ve been secretly hoping for that email for a long time. She sent me some dates and, crazy enough, I was available only three weeks out in peak wedding season! From there, we knew it was meant to be and got right to work, jumping on the phone to talk location, timing, details and get her lined up with a solid plan.

Both Danielle and Curtis love Loon Lake and so we figured that was the perfect place to hold the ceremony and casual bbq reception. The day couldn’t have gone smoother and you honestly wouldn’t have known that it was put together in less than three weeks!

After the wedding, Danielle shared some of her insight and her overall experience with planning an intimate elopement in such a short time, in the hopes of encouraging other couples to ditch the expensive wedding 10 months out and make it happen now:

“We’d been kicking around eloping for the past couple of years, but always came up with reasons not to… we want to have a “real” wedding… we want all our friends and family to see us get married… we thought we wanted all the traditions of getting engaged, planning a big wedding, etc.

But one day we were talking about getting married and I said, “let’s just elope while my sister is here in a few weeks” and Curtis said “ok, I’m down!” And this time we actually did it!

That night I emailed Vanessa and she was actually available on the date we chose. I had always told Curtis that Vanessa would be our wedding photographer.. So her randomly being available during busy wedding season made it meant to be.

The next day we went down to Folsom and got rings (the jeweler was so excited for us that he made a custom ring for me in less than 2 weeks!) and things just literally fell into place from there. We picked our favorite lake for camping and the ceremony, my best friend is a caterer and wanted to do the food, I found my dress at a local shop in downtown Placerville for less than $200, and we found the boys clothes on clearance at Men’s Warehouse and H&M… we told only close family and friends but still had around 40 people there because Curtis’s family is huge.. but it was a perfect day. It all came together so perfectly and was so “US.” That was the best part. It was so totally exactly how we are.. easygoing, not showy.. just in our favorite place with our favorite people.

Vanessa couldn’t have been a more perfect match for us as our photographer. I’ve known her through mutual friends and followed her on Instagram and always loved her work… but her personality and style just meshed so well with ours that it made our day even more easy and fun. I have a feeling she’s like that with all her clients because she’s just that good at what she does. She takes the setting she’s put in with the people she is working with and just does her job seamlessly and with so much confidence that you feel comfortable right from the start. “