Iceland Elopement with Levi Tijerina
Iceland Elopement with Levi Tijerina
via
The best weddings, for me, are those that bring a song to mind, and Levi Tijerina's images of the Icelandic landscape have a quiet presence that lingers in the mind like beautiful music. Caitlin and Jon met in college and live in Tuscon, Arizona. After getting engaged, they made the decision to have a wedding ceremony at home and then elope afterwards. Both harboring a penchant for the unexpected, they immediately knew that Iceland would be the destination for their elopement. Levi spent a whole day with the couple traveling through the island's western shores. The serenity of the landscape is overwhelming, and I loved putting these beautiful images together.
THE MEETING AND ENGAGEMENT
"Jon and I met in college at Oberlin through a group of mutual friends where he studied computer science and I studied literature. There's a common belief that some ludicrous percent of Oberlin students end up marrying other Obies. It doesn't surprise me at all! While we definitely share many of the same interests, I think what drew us to each other was more our perspective on life and love. I could tell that we considered the former to be a series of exciting but calculated risks and the latter to be the most beautiful and terrifying and wonderful adventure we were going to take, and that we wanted to take it together. Jon interned at Google one summer so we were living in California. We took a road trip up and down the coast one long weekend, visiting sights and taking walks by the beaches we passed. I didn't know he'd already gotten the ring during that trip. He waited until we'd gotten back to the apartment we were sharing to officially ask, and it made perfect sense - travel and exploration are always going to be a part of our life together, but our relationship is also about the home we make in between adventures.DECIDING ON A DESTINATION WEDDING
We were drawn to the idea of a destination wedding from the start, since we've done so much traveling together already (Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Germany) and we don't intend to stop anytime soon. The issue was that we also feel a very close tie to our family and friends and we knew that choosing to go out of the country would make it very difficult for some our favorite financially struggling people to celebrate with us. After trying to find ways to make it work, we realized something: these two impulses, one to throw a party and celebrate with our loved ones, and the other to commemorate all the ways in which a traveling partner and a spouse seem to perfectly coincide for us, could make for two different but equally meaningful ceremonies. So we had one ceremony in Tucson, Arizona with friends and family, and then took the dress and suit on a plane to Iceland for a private sharing of vows in the lava fields.CHOOSING THE LOCATION
If we could, we would get married on the moon. We both love strange, surreal places, like the Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto with its thousands of red torii or the Sant'Ignazio Church in Rome with Andrea Pozzo's tromp l'oleil frescos that seem to feature three-dimensional figures. Given that penchant for the unexpected, we knew immediately that Iceland would be perfect. We'd both wanted to go after seeing pictures of this world of contrasts, with the greenest grass we'd ever seen growing around rolling lava fields not far from black sand and towering glaciers and surrounded by incredible views of the ocean. We knew that going in summer would also be particularly exciting, as the sun never fully sets!CHALLENGES
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