A Halloween Cliffside Elopement in Jenner

A Cliff Ceremony Above the Pacific in Jenner

The ceremony happened right at the edge, on a bluff above the open water with the horizon and nothing else behind them. Christopher read his vows while Alexis was watching him — as her veil moved subtly in the wind. Their closest family and friends were standing at the edge of the headland — an older man among them, someone's dad in a flat cap, the small handful of people who'd made the trip. Rev. Samuel Fullerton stood at the front.

The Our Little Wedding team scouted the spot specially, a cliffside stretch of the Sonoma Coast and the drama they wanted on the October afternoon. The light was warm and low, the water a flat pale grey below. The whole bluff was catching amber at the edges.

“Brian picked the most beautiful coastline spot, and we got the best pictures with an amazing sunset.”

Portraits Along the Sonoma Coast Headlands

With the vows said, the afternoon opened up for portraits along the bluffs. Jenner sits where the Russian River meets the Pacific, on a stretch of coast known for its sea stacks and the harbor seals that haul out at the river mouth — in late October, at the peak of pupping season, hundreds of them line the sand. Alexis and Christopher walked the headland through the dry gold grass and the low cypress, the water behind them the whole way, the coastline doing the work no décor could.

They went out near the edge together, her veil and her train laid over the grass, his hand at her waist, the cove dropping away to the surf below.