Alaska Miller's Landing wedding | The Bus and Us wedding

K, how cute are these bridesmaid jumpsuits? (Don’t worry, more on that below.) If you don’t follow Tessa and Dillon of The Bus & Us, you will be after seeing their rainy day wedding in Alaska… It’s SO sweet. T + D met at an 80s themed costume party, fell in love while adventuring around Alaska, and spent three more years sleeping under the stars while traveling from Alaska to Argentina in their 1975 VW bus. Naturally, saying I Do outside was a must for them, and 200 guests met them at Miller’s Landing to celebrate. From kayaking in their wedding attire to a costume party on the beach (naturally!), their big day was the perfect representation of their deep connection and adventurous spirits. Thanks to photographer + floral designer Tanya Val for sending these photos our way!

Rainy day Alaska wedding for The Bus & Us

First looks in the rain, does it get any sweeter?

Tessa explains, We chose the venue we did because of the location. Resurrection Bay out of Seward, Alaska is where we had one of our most magical weekends together when we were falling in love. Picture massive glacier covered mountains jutting straight out of the ocean. Kayaking at midnight with whales surfacing and the sky on fire with a midnight sun sunset. Spending our nights cozied up in a public use cabin. Then five years later, in the same bay, is where Dillon proposed… on kayaks.

Tessa’s bouquet recipe: Alaskan peonies, anemones, lilies, scabiosa, ranunculus, lisianthus, bunny tail, local textural grasses, a variety of foliage and textures

It was obvious that this place that was such a huge part of our story would be where we would promise our love to each other. We took a water taxi to exchange our vows with our photographer and videographer to the small cove where the magic had happened. It was an absolute downpour, but we found a bit of shelter from the storm under a tree where we exchanged vows. I convinced Dillon we should still go kayaking in the rain (before the ceremony) because we were already drenched. So wedding dress and all, we hopped into the kayaks that we got engaged in. When we got back to the venue where the wedding would take place, we had to blow dry my dress and Dillon’s suit for half an hour, and completely dry and redo my hair. But it was all worth it!

The ceremony and reception were on a raw piece of property at Miller’s Landing, right on the ocean. We decided to find the location and then work backwards, as far as the set up. In Alaska, you have to have a tent if you do an outdoor wedding, as the weather is never predictable, so we hired a tent company to create the area for the reception.

Tessa’s bridesmaids wore rust linen jumpsuits from Not Perfect Linen… so unique!

Most of our wedding was DIY. From friends helping to hand-tie every silverware set, to making our own napkins, to decorations, it was all from the ground up. It was fun gathering driftwood, harvesting accents for the bridal party bouquet and ferns for a “live wall”, and things leading up to the special day. Many things that people would typically pay others to do, we chose to do ourselves with people we love so there was an extra touch of thoughtfulness. Our day-of planner was a friend, and everyone contributed in different ways. A good friend of our drew a logo of the exact mountains and ocean we would stand next to at the ceremony and another wood worker friend of ours got that logo made into a wood burning stamp, cut and sanded 200 rounds of birch wood, branded and stained each one for coasters on the table and as the take home gift.

The icing on the cake to our perfect day was that at around 9pm the whole thing turned into a costume party. Friends of ours collected costume boxes and thrifted so we were able to have an insanely random mix of costumes for people to wear. And there wasn’t anyone there that wasn’t into it. Costumes on the dance floor brought a whole new level of funk and fun out of everyone there, from 7-70 years old.