Malika and Kellan were moving to Texas. But, before they left the Pacific Northwest behind they wanted one last love letter to the Oregon Coast and I got to be there for it.

Their original plan was a courthouse elopement. That turned into a backyard ceremony with a handful of family the day before we met up on the coast. So when we finally got together it was just us, no agenda, and a cliff at Oswald West State Park that Malika had been dreaming about since she first saw it on my instagram. She came specifically for those cliffs. No backup plan, no alternatives. I love that kind of certainty.

Neither of them had ever been to this spot before so we took our time just letting them take it all in. The headlands at Oswald West drop straight into the Pacific and the views from up there genuinely stop you mid sentence. It was a cloudy late summer evening and the landscape was doing that thing the Oregon Coast does so well where everything is just impossibly rich and green and moody and you almost don’t need the sun at all.

And then Malika put on her cathedral mantilla veil and like a mic drop. WOW. So stunning

A full cathedral mantilla against a raw Oregon Coast clifftop is a combination I could not have dreamed up. The breeze caught it. The landscape met it. Every single frame with that veil looks like something out of a film and I will never stop thinking about it.

We were deep into the session and already winning when the clouds actually broke open. For about six minutes the sun pushed through and lit up those cliffs in a way I could not have planned on my best day. We just kept shooting. Those six minutes produced some of the most stunning images I have ever made. I mean it.

A Note on Oswald West State Park

If you have been scrolling my work and a specific location keeps stopping you, trust that feeling. Oswald West sits on the northern Oregon Coast between Manzanita and Cannon Beach and it is one of those places that rewards the people who actually seek it out. Old growth forest, dramatic headlands, coastline that feels nothing like the more visited spots nearby. It is wild and cinematic and completely real. For couples who want an Oregon Coast elopement that feels genuinely untouched, this is where I would take you.

Let’s Make Something Like This

If Malika and Kellan’s day resonates with you I would love to hear from you. But bring the veil please. Reach me HERE. For a little more inspo here is an elopement that utilized both this location and Cannon Beach!