Megan & Aheim's Cozy Backyard Dinner Party Wedding, Los Angeles

I went into my archives to share this pre-COVID backyard dinner party wedding I shot, because pandemic or not, the backyard wedding will always be my favorite way to come together for a wedding.

In my mind, it is such a natural and comfortable place to invite all your best loved ones to witness and celebrate the love between you and your partner and the life you’ve built together. Whether it’s a rental home you rent together, or maybe the first home you bought, or even the childhood home your parent’s still live in, there is so much intimacy to be experienced in the backyard wedding. In the not-so-distant past, this was how it was done! You’d wear your best clothes, your mother would bake the cake, your sister would arrange the flowers, and you would exchange vows in the home before celebrating with your invited guests.

Megan and Aheim first met in Aheim’s homecountry of Jamaica and maintained a long-distance relationship for years before Aheim began the process of immigrating permanently to the United States to start the next chapter of their lives together. For them, sitting down together as a family to share a meal, after reading vows outside to each other in front of the garage, was exactly how they wanted to come together and celebrate. Afterwards there was cake, darts and dominoes, and good old-fashioned letting loose.