A Desert Ceremony at Cap Rock in Joshua Tree National Park

The Cap Rock Desert Ceremony in Joshua Tree National Park

At Cap Rock there were no chairs. Everyone stood in the sand while Ben came in with his mom and dad, then Ricki with her mom, walking to "A Thousand Years." Allen Bencomo officiated, the monzogranite boulders stacked up behind him and the Joshua trees scattered across the flat in every direction. Ricki and Ben stood close under one tall Joshua tree to say their vows, hands held between them.

After the vows and rings, Ricki closed the ceremony the way she wanted to — breaking the glass underfoot while the whole group gathered in tight around her. Then they walked back out to "Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)," twelve people clapping in the desert air. Right after, they raised champagne flutes together in a circle among the rocks, a toast under the open blue sky.

“No chairs, twelve people standing in the sand, and the glass breaking underfoot with the boulders rising behind them.”

Portraits Among the Cap Rock Formations

Portraits ran through the formations after the ceremony, family first, then the couple alone. In one, Ricki walks arm in arm with her mom, in a deep green dress, past a wall of sun-warmed granite. The whole family gathered for a group shot in front of one of the big pale rock piles — a younger brother, her parents, a sister in black, everyone pulled in close.

Then Ricki and Ben went out among the boulders on their own. Cap Rock takes its name from the boulder balanced on top of the pile, part of a landscape that erosion has been shaping here for close to a hundred million years, and it stood behind them the whole time. The February desert runs cold once the sun drops, so Ricki pulled a soft faux-fur shawl over her shoulders between shots. They walked out under the Joshua trees while the light went warm across the sand, the boulders glowing gold at the end of the day.

Dinner Back at the Desert House

The celebration carried on back at the rental house, the whole family together for the evening — a meal, the twelve of them, kids included. That was the reason they had wanted everyone under one roof: no driving back out from the park, just the group staying put once the desert let them go.

The cake was a white buttercream from The Pastry Swan Bakery, delivered ahead of the day. After a national park ceremony out in the rocks, the night settled into what they had come for: their closest people, good food, and time together in the high desert, the California they had moved west to find, all of it in one day.