A Redwoods Elopement at Old Mill Park in Mill Valley

An Elopement Ceremony in the Old Mill Park Amphitheater

The ceremony was in the Old Mill Park amphitheater, the redwood trunks rising straight on every side and the light coming down soft through the canopy. Stevi Hanson officiated as Haley and Taylor faced each other and said their vows, their people gathered close on the tiered seating.

No long aisle, just the two of them and the trees, and the people who'd come out to watch them marry. The amphitheater sits in the grove at the center of the park, and a Mill Valley redwood elopement at this scale gives the ceremony a natural ceiling no rented tent can replicate.

“Just the two of them and the redwoods, and the people who came to watch them marry.”

Portraits Through the Old Mill Park Redwoods

After the ceremony came portraits through the grove, family photos first, then the couple moving through the trees on their own. The reconstructed mill from 1834 still stands in the park, a short walk from where they'd just been married, the same redwoods rising around it.

A marin elopement like this one tends to stay in one place, which is part of why the park works so well, everything the day needed was already there. The creek runs alongside the path between the mill and the amphitheater, and in early September the light filters through the canopy at an angle that makes the grove feel more like a room than an open space. Portraits here don't need a scene change; the old mill park redwoods are enough, and the couple used all of them.

Dinner, Cake, and a First Dance

The celebration moved into the evening. Gravity Tavern handled the food, a cake from Sweet C's Cakeshoppe was cut, and toasts went around the small group gathered close.

Haley and Taylor had their first dance as the light dropped through the branches, and the dancing went on from there, a close, unhurried end to an intimate amphitheater ceremony built entirely around the people they wanted with them.