One of my favorite things to do is to photograph the weddings of friends.  I met Karen over ten years ago when I was in graduate school at Northern Illinois University.  At the time, I was the graduate assistant for the Outing Centre, the university’s outdoor adventure program.  I hired Karen to work as a backpacking and climbing guide back in 2000. Since then we have shared many adventures together mostly revolving around rock climbing.
 
I love the story of how I met her future husband, Cliff, back in 2009. I was sitting in a small internet cafe in Kathmandu, Nepal, and decided to check my Facebook page. Which I can assure you, is no easy task in a city that only gets electricity for 8 hours per day, and it takes a little luck for the internet and electricity to be on at the same time.  I just happened to notice a post on Karen’s page that said she was sitting in a different internet cafe also in Kathmandu.  I had no idea she was even in that part of the world, let alone on the other side of town.  I sent her a message suggesting we should meet the next day before I left to return home.  The next day, we met up for lunch, and that is how I met Cliff for the first time.
 
Unfortunately, I haven’t had too many opportunities to spend time with Karen and Cliff in the last few years because of busy schedules all of us being on the road a lot.  The one time I did get to see them was on our 2010 attempt to climb Mount Rainier.  Unfortunately due to an injury on our team, we turned around a few thousand feet from the summit, but spending several days tied to each other on a rope team is a great way to get to know someone.  Either you end up hating each other or become fast friends.  Fortunately my experience was the latter, and I was thrilled when Karen told me that her and Cliff were engaged, and that they wanted me to photograph their wedding in Leavenworth, Washington.
 
 

To see more images of this event, visit www.pictage.com/1201307.