Athena and Camron

Emotional + Moving Boho Wedding guaranteed to make you cry

Weddings

When your Australian friend falls in love with an American just like you did, and decides to move to America and have her wedding there too, you photograph it. You cry with her over the goodbyes and rejoice with her over the gift of marriage, because you know exactly how it feels yourself.

THEIR VOWS:

“I bind myself to you in a lasting covenant of devotion and sacrificial love, as long as we both shall live. It is an honor to receive you as my husband, knowing that I am marrying a man of deep faithfulness, integrity, strength, passion and tenderness. You inspire me everyday, you have made me brighter and stronger.
It is my joy to yield to your selfless leadership, and to spur you everyday to chase the heart of God with reckless abandon. I choose to lay my life down for you, as I lay it down for Jesus Christ, that you might know the love of Christ even deeper through my love and pursuit of you. I promise to be your best friend, your team mate and your lover, for all of the days of our lives.
I choose to build with you — to build a life that honors the grace of Jesus Christ, to build a home where peace dwells, to build a family that knows the extravagant love of God, and to build the kingdom of Heaven here on earth. Through anything this life may throw at us — sickness or good health, poverty or wealth, obscurity or fame — in all things, I vow to love you and choose you as my husband every day, to treasure you, to live in gratitude to God for you, and not to take you for granted.
I promise to champion you, to cherish you and to fiercely protect you. I promise to be your safe place, your home. I promise to forgive freely, as I know the forgiveness of my Heavenly Father. This day, with greatest honor and joy, to I vow to be your wife, all the days of our lives.”
THE STORY:

Back when I (Athena) lived in Sydney, God brought Jordan and I together 2 years ago for a bridal styled shoot for a Hosea devotional I was writing, and ever since then I just knew I’d photograph her again – because of a deep heart connection and a mutual desire to know and share the pursuing love of God ❤️I got to debrief with Jordan about her day:

WHAT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR WEDDING PLANNING?

That Jesus was honored. Our first love always has been and always will be Jesus. It was important to us that everyone who came on the day saw and felt the heart of God in a pure and tangible way. For this reason, our vows and communion were the two most important moments of our day. Our vows display the way God loves us in relentless covenant, and communion celebrates the union we have with him because of his passionate love. Everything else in our wedding was planned around these two components.

WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE FOR SOMEONE PLANNING THEIR WEDDING?
My advice would be that your intimacy with God while you’re engaged is the most important thing – more important than even your wedding. Your wedding day will come and go, but Jesus has so much to deposit in your heart and build in both of you before you get married. So spend as much time seeking His heart as you can, and you will find that the things that would have stressed you out and made you anxious are not important to you anymore… Think about what is truly important to you.We wanted everything to point back to celebrating the covenant love of God, so everything we did was centered around that. If we knew something wasn’t going to bring glory to God, we knew it wasn’t necessary. We focused less on aesthetics and more on the meaning behind the words that were said. When we look back at our wedding, we wouldn’t change a single thing. God’s heart was displayed and his goodness was celebrated, so our wedding was everything we wanted it to be!
To Jordan + Dylan – you could have chosen to elope but instead you created space for your family and friends to know the love of God through your wedding. The way you humbly ushered in this moment is something we’ll never forget. Your marriage is going to shape generations and it was a privilege to capture day one ❤️

For this groom, pre-ceremony prayer wasn’t a little photo op. It was almost an hour of intentional words of truth and prophetic wisdom, spoken to him and also by him. It was community at its most vulnerable. It was friendship at its most intentional. It was full of expectation and anticipation of not just being a groom, but being a husband.

“The way they prayed over me before the ceremony was so powerful and it actually felt like electricity was charging through my body because the Spirit of God was so present.”

“Watching her walk down the aisle was the closest thing I’ve ever experienced to glory — heaven. I understood a shadow of how fiercely and irrevocably Jesus loves his Bride. She was so gloriously beautiful. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. It was the most electric few moments I’ve ever experienced.”

“Choosing to see Dylan as I walked down the aisle was probably one of our our top two favorite moments of the wedding day. In that moment, it felt like everything faded into the background and all we saw was each other. We worshipped in our hearts for those few seconds, just so grateful to have the gift of one another… I couldn’t stop looking at him. I couldn’t believe he was mine to keep forever!”

“My favorite moment from our wedding was when I got the end of the aisle and he kissed my hands and whispered prayers in my ear. Oh my heart!”

During Jordan + Dylan’s ceremony, the groom took the microphone and spoke for probably 20 minutes. While Dylan spoke his bride was so moved she ended up on her knees. Jordan said,

“God shared his heart for us through the story of Hosea. Dylan was overcome with emotion sharing the endless pursuing love of God for us, his Bride: No matter what we do, even though we run after other lovers and chase selfish pleasures, even though we forget his goodness and turn our face from him, he sees us as his precious bride and will do anything to get us back. Everybody’s eyes were closed and Dylan spoke over everyone that God loves them all with a tender, forgiving, passionate love. No rejection of God was too much for God to stop pursuing them. No addiction, divorce, depression, slander, wealth, poverty or sickness got in the way of the love of God for our family and friends.”

You should have been there – the whole room was completely electrified with God’s presence. Dylan invited his guests to experience and know this love as his bride kneeled and prayed, expectant for God’s love to really change hearts. Their faith was genuine and humble and it was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen at a wedding.

And in a depth of humility we’ve only seen a few times in our lives, the groom shared the love of Jesus. Jordan’s reaction was to kneel and pray as He spoke and gave space for God to work. It wasn’t his eloquence or her beauty or the fact it was their wedding day – it was God, at work, in the room. Seriously never experienced anything like this! We get goosebumps every single time we tell someone about it.

“As Dylan spoke, I was so moved by the passionate love of God that I could hardly stand and knelt in prayer that these words would sink deep into the hearts of our family and friends.”

Jordan’s beautiful words of this photo moved us so much. We love when our photos become so meaningful to our brides + grooms:

“God, your wrap around presence is our defense. In your kindness, look upon the faces of your anointed ones. For just one day of intimacy with you is like a thousand days of joy rolled into one! (Psalm 84:9-10)

This verse reminds me of this photo. Nothing will ever be more sweet than being found in His presence. Our prayer for our marriage is that we never spend one day together without intimacy with our divine Friend.”

DressRue De Seine / Venue – Huitt Farm, Anderson, SC / Cake – Sarah Elizabeth Cakes / DJ – Party Machine / Catering – Sullivan’s Grill / Video – 365 Films / Rentals – ABC Party Rentals / FlowersFORAGE (the bride’s company!) / SUITSDimitra Designs

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