it's like rain on your wedding day | christian . michelle

Montana Outdoor Camp-like Wedding | Christian . Michelle The ubiquitous and inevitable ingredients of any American wedding include cake, white dress, flowers, and a relative or two who is known as "Crazy Uncle John" and it is understood that he is to be taken with a grain of salt. In the case of this rural Montana ranch wedding of Christian and Michelle however, the Crazy Uncle Johns were outnumbering the urbanites and the grains of salt were copious. Without ever bringing it to a vote, it was unanimous that for every member involved, Christian and Michelle's wedding ranked among the best weddings and best events even, of all time.

The festivities started with an all-inclusive frisbee golf event (google Christian Dietrich disc golf), then on to a rehearsal party in the home of several thousand books (google Christian Dietrech's dad's book collection), followed by a day of preparation, a solitary Quakeresque wedding, the reception, then an enormous bonfire of Norwegian candles and all guests hunkering down for the night in their tent near the river. In all of it, the Crazy Uncle John Montana spirit kept all spirits high and flames burning.

The most notable example of this was when during the reception, a sudden storm came in quickly and strongly with wind and rain. Michelle, the bride, threw on a coat over top of her dress and started directing traffic. About four other men took off their shirts and buckled in their beards before taking on the storm to save the tent, the band, and anything else that needed saving. Not long after, in the safety of a wall-less tent, we all watched the bride and groom do their first dance in jeans and raincoats with soaked hair and loving smiles to acoustic music.

Towards the end of the night, there was no telling the Montana locals from the Entourage-extra looking East Coasters because all were arm in arm and beer in hand, laughing like we knew it was our last chance to dance in the eye of the hurricane. (For the record, there was no pt. II to the storm. The next morning we all had breakfast together in the sunshine).

The Dietrich-Johnson wedding is the kind of event that not only makes the job of photography beautiful, but also the job of "earth dweller". We liked it.