This wedding in Brazil was such an amazing Adventure!
A year ago, Tanner went to Brazil to photograph a wedding for Filipe and Julia, who Tanner had known for a couple years. For ten days, he was hosted by this incredible family and their son Rafael. Rafa is his nickname, and Tanner and him immediately connected like brothers. This was Tanner’s first trip to Brazil and he fell in love with the food, culture and community. Tanner and Rafa spent multiple nights talking and this girl named Maurem kept coming up. At the wedding for Filipe and Julia, Rafa got the courage to ask out Maurem on their first date. They quickly fell in love and were engaged 6 months later. In November, Rafa flew up to the States to intern with a church for a month. He took a train from San Diego to Seattle to spend Thanksgiving with us. It was his first experience with an American Thanksgiving. We spent a couple days with Maria’s side of the family in the Portland area, and then we drove to Wallowa county, Oregon, with Tanner’s side of the family. It was on this trip that Rafa told us that they wanted us to photograph their wedding in Brazil. We were so excited! We immediately started dreaming and planning and all loved the idea of an after-ceremony adventure in the mountains of Brazil.
We flew to Brazil in May. The day of the wedding, Rafa actually asked us to just be guests of the wedding and just enjoy it, but we couldn’t resist to take a few photos anyways. The next day we drove 3.5 hours to some of the biggest Mountains in Brazil. The first location reminds us of Yosemite but with Jungle and the cutest little Pastel food truck. It’s only in a place like Brazil that you could drive way up on a dirt road into the mountains and find a cute little food truck making delicious pastries.
The next morning, we woke up quite early and drove our way to what would become our favorite location ever. We were super excited to shoot in the thick fog but as we got near the top of the mountain, we saw that the fog layer was just in the bottom of the valley. As the sun was rising, we saw that the rays of sunlight were going to line up perfectly with the opening in the cliff. It was a absolute dream and one of the most incredible sunrises we have ever witnessed. Tanner kept yelling in excitement and Maria nearly cried. The rays of sunlight lasted for over an hour, and the results are breathtaking. We spent a few hours on the mountain with them and headed back into town for a well deserved breakfast. We spent the rest of the day exploring around the other sights and drove back to Floripa so Rafa and Maurem could go on their honeymoon at a resort in the North Island. We truly had such an incredible time on this adventure with these two lovebirds! Congrats Rafa and Maurem! Thank you for bringing us along on your wild adventure and for going along with all our crazy ideas, like waking up at 3am for a sunrise hike.
