In between the elaborate 300-person wedding inspo on Pinterest and the adventurous two-person elopements that dot our Instagram stories, there’s a sweet little section of weddings that glimmer just enough to catch our eyes.

Snow-capped mountains in the distance, high desert, vast forests, serene rivers – Bend, Oregon, is truly a one-of-a-kind place. I’m biased, of course. As a Bend elopement and wedding photographer who lives smack dab in the center of it all, I know first-hand

When Whitney and Levi envisioned their eventual small wedding day, they both dreamed of something that felt like stepping into another world—a dreamy, mythical forest where love and spring collided. 

A few years back, a woman named Piper caught a glimpse of the cover photo in a Seattle Brides Magazine. In the photo, a bride and groom stood on opposite floats of a float plane in full wedding attire, bobbing up and down in a remote lake in the North Cascades.

What’s the first thing that floods your mind when you hear the word micro wedding? As a luxury elopement and micro wedding photographer who’s spent the last several years documenting these celebrations, I’ve come to realize that there’s some confusion surrounding microweddings.