When Melanie and Derek were planning their destination wedding in Phoenix, Arizona, I’m sure they didn’t picture it quite the way it turned out! When the time finally came, their family and friends packed their bags and headed for the sunshine. Unfortunately…. their search for the sun was in vain! When they arrived in “the Valley of the Sun” they found nothing but gray skies and people hiding under umbrellas!
Melanie and Derek picked McCormick Ranch Golf Club for their big day. When it was time, we all ran out onto the golf course and finished the ceremony as quick as we could to beat the rain that was headed our way. It started sprinkling as we began and just as we finished it started really coming down.
(If you look closely in the pic above, you can see the rain falling).
When the ceremony was over, we piled as many people as we could into the 2 golf carts we had and the rest of the guests ran back to the reception room while covering their heads and trying to keep warm at the same time!
(Here’s the mad dash).
Scottie and I were able to cover our cameras just enough to save them (even though Scottie had to stop shooting for about 20 minutes while his camera dried out)!
Fortunately, Melanie and Derek are incredibly fun people and they were just having a blast through all of this! I personally thought it was really fun and I was relieved to find that the bride and groom agreed with me!
(thankfully their family and friends are just as much fun as they are)!
While the rain made our job slightly more difficult, the wind decided to be on our side for once (thanks to Melanie’s decision to go with a cathedral veil)!
(We were happy Melanie decided to have some fun playing with her veil in the wind).
We spent the rest of the night inside, not counting the few minutes that rushed outside to catch the sunset just as the rain stopped. We ended up being very glad we attempted that mad maneuver of trying to beat the weather because we’re pretty happy with the results!
Once we were inside we got a chance to ogle the unbelievable flowers they had there… that her mom arranged! We couldn’t stop taking pictures of them!
These cupcakes held their own as well!
We watched their beautiful first dance…
….and then spent the majority of our night following Melanie around while she played with the kids she used to nanny for.
She LOVES these kids and it was really fun to watch her dance, color (they had a craft table to entertain the kids), and just play around with them in general.
The kids felt so special that they got to hang out with the bride all night! It was awesome.
Here are the rest of my favorites from the day (click here to see the rest of the photos as well)…
(There I go again with all my shoe shots).
Melanie and Derek, we had a blast at your wedding and we’re so glad we got to hang out with such fun people! We loved your chill attitude and your desire to not worry about anything so you could just have a great time on your wedding day. You seemed successful in that and we hope you enjoyed your wedding day even more than you expected to!
Click to see the rest of Melanie and Derek’s Scottsdale wedding photos!