Natural Beauty in a Golf Course?

For the wedding of Cynthia and Mike (see their engagement portraits at Point Defiance Park), we headed across the Narrows Bridge to McCormick Woods, a golf and country club in Port Orchard. This being our first visit, we were very happy to find a beautiful wedding venue that provided a great deal of natural beauty quite close to the ceremony and reception sites. It was a welcome change of pace from the carefully constructed, meticulously manicured gardens of most golf courses.

We met up with the guys and girls of the wedding party in adjacent rooms of the clubhouse. The guys, blessed with easy self-preparations, mostly hung out, ate, and played poker.

The girls felt the time crunch a bit more, although Cynthia's big sister Kandy still did an excellent job on her hair.

The wedding ceremony was staged in front of a gazebo located a short walk from the clubhouse — for everyone but Cynthia and her dad, who rode a golf cart to the foot of the aisle.

Very close to the ceremony site is a creek bed loaded with boulders, sun-bleached stumps, and Japanese maples — an attractive mix of the native and the cultured that was worth a quick hike to get into a few ceremony shots.

For the wedding party and bride-and-groom portraits, we headed first toward a small hill that provided the perfect pedestal for the newlyweds, and then to the edge of North Lake, a long, skinny, and vibrantly green body of water. The last photo is a family heirloom broach that was the "something borrowed" attached to Cynthia's bouquet.

The reception was held in banquet rooms in the clubhouse with DJ and MC services by Sounds Unlimited. There was a lot of lively dancing, so we've included some of our favorite dance shots of the night.

It was fun to cover Cynthia and Mike's wedding alongside Jeremy Almeda of Endlesslove Productions, who is a most excellent wedding videographer who we are happy to recommend to all our clients.

Congrats to Cynthia and Mike!