It’s 3 a.m. and Megan Kikugawa is wide awake with nervous energy. The Irvine resident is doing her own hair and makeup for a sunrise wedding at one of the world’s most scenic places. 

This is her dream wedding, and she’s hours away from hanging off the side of a cliff at Yosemite National Park in her wedding dress.
 
“Most [stylists] are based out of Fresno,” she told SFGATE in a recent phone interview. “It just wasn’t feasible for me to get to Fresno or have someone come out for just me. I had to figure it out myself.”

This is much the same story for brave couples who opt for the backdrop of Yosemite’s woods and granite walls, away from big cities and traditional weddings. Some might associate Yosemite weddings with the Yosemite Valley Chapel, a quaint wooden building set in the lush meadows of the valley. Though it may not seem obvious, getting married in the park’s makeshift outdoor venues is actually in very high demand.

According to park officials, there is currently a “crushing demand” and “huge number of applications” for Yosemite wedding permits, so the wait may be a long one.
 
Adriana Krause and her husband, Stephan Alvin, who list themselves as “Yosemite Elopement Photographers” on their website, are available to “adventurous souls” seeking the ultimate commitment in Mother Nature’s cathedrals, such as Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Big Sur and Mammoth Lakes, to name a few. 

“We started doing traditional weddings,” Krause said. “It wasn’t really what we loved. We initially didn’t think there was a huge market for elopements, but we were very wrong.” 

Wrong indeed. Krause and Alvin estimate 80% of their annual workload now takes place at Yosemite, just some of the many elopements that happen in the park every year. Though official figures aren’t available, it doesn’t take a trained eye to spot bride after bride after bride roaming the park for a photo session during peak season.

Krause credits the rise in outdoor weddings to the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
“It opened it up as a possibility that they never considered before the pandemic,” Krause said. “People were quite glad they had that excuse to not invite as many people. They were like, ‘This is what we’ve always wanted to do.’” 

Based in Oakhurst — about 15 minutes from the park’s South Gate — the two regularly scout Yosemite’s trails and wilderness for elopement locations and inspiration. These trips sometimes lead to “hidden” wedding locations that Krause keeps close to the vest, shared only with her couples in need of a special place without crowds to exchange their vows.
 
“It’s your job to find the hidden spots as a photographer,” Krause said. “We use that time in our offseason to find those secret corners that nobody knows. That’s the advantage of hiring somebody local or a photographer that’s shot in Yosemite several times.”
 
There is a catch, though. Per official park rules — and there are a lot of them — only bridal parties of fewer than 11 may venture off the list of recommended elopement sites to choose a preapproved place all their own within the park boundary. 

That initial list includes popular scenic spots like Cathedral Beach, Glacier Point, Tenaya Lake, Tuolumne Grove and, yes, Bridalveil Fall. 

To begin the $150 permitting process, couples are asked to fill out a detailed form that includes preferred and backup dates, locations and times. “The park tries to avoid ceremonies happening at the same time,” Krause said.
 
The photographer, who said she’s never had the park deny a permit for one of her couples, is one of many who help clients complete the required paperwork.
 
Photographer Emily Jenks has also made a living shooting in some of Yosemite’s most scenic places. For her, there’s nothing better than a wedding at Taft Point or Glacier Point, both about an hour’s drive from the valley. 

“I’ve never been anywhere like it,” she said. “In my mind, those are the coolest spots. Taft Point at sunset is the best place to do a wedding. Sunset is always different, it amazes me. Something about the clouds and the colors in the sky are different.”
 
Once the initial application is done, the couple then gets the long list of park regulations to adhere to during their ceremony. There are rules for where couples can stand to avoid roots when marrying in giant sequoia groves. And a list of bans for drones, the release of butterflies (or doves), amplified music and, unsurprisingly, open flames. There are also rules around throwing rice (it’s an unnatural food source for park wildlife) and the use of baby’s breath in bouquets, to prevent seeds from falling and germinating unnaturally.
 
Importantly, several rules center around protection of Yosemite’s natural and cultural resources under the park’s “Leave No Trace” policy.

Photographers remain in shape to hike to locations that vary by accessibility. While some couples opt for park-and-walk locations like Glacier Point, others chart moderate 25-minute hikes to their wedding sites, like the popular Taft Point — situated more than 3,000 feet above Yosemite Valley. 

On the far end of the spectrum, Krause and Alvin once shot a Yosemite wedding that included a 10-mile round-trip hike, a day Krause called “part of the job.” Keep in mind that photographers aren’t just bringing themselves — they’ve got lots of equipment with them.

“My husband’s backpack is probably 20 to 25 pounds,” Krause laughed. “He carries most of the lenses and cameras. But I carry maybe 10 pounds. He’s very nice to me.”
 
The brides, however, are a different story.
 
“I’ve never had a bride that carried their wedding dress and changed there. All of my clients usually wear their wedding dress on the hike,” Jenks said. “Other hikers make comments like, ‘Do you always hike like this?’ The brides and grooms usually wear sneakers or hiking boots, maybe more for the aesthetic of it.”

For their part, Kikugawa and her now-husband, Michael Brown, met at their local climbing gym, so it seemed natural for the two experienced climbers to wed outdoors in mid-September. 

Following an obscenely early wake-up call to get to Glacier Point for their sunrise wedding, Kikugawa changed into her wedding gown in the parking lot with minutes to spare before the sun graced Yosemite yet again. 

After, the newlyweds ventured back down to the valley for a quick climb up El Capitan’s Pine Line route. “It was decently heavy,” Kikugawa said of her wedding dress during the climb. “It was a hot day in the valley, so I was sweating hiking up to the base of the nose. Then the climbing was definitely a challenge, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it could be. It was still a ton of fun.”