Beautiful Backyard Wedding in Minnesota

One thing that a pandemic will teach us is how to adapt. And through that adaptation, I’ve found that having a backyard wedding can be even better than at a fancy, established, traditional wedding venue. Especially if you do it like these two did. Anisse & Elijah’s backyard wedding celebration really took this idea to the next level. The background details on the couple, their location, and all the awesome vendors that contributed to such an epic party are below.

Sure, Elijah Campbell is a professional football player for the Miami Dolphins (hometown Central High School talent) but if we’re being honest this was really Zakai and Anisse’s show. Zakai is their super cool 3-year-old son, and as you’ll see in the photos below he was looking mighty sharp and having an absolute blast all day long. Well, except when the Lebanese dance first kicked off with an absolutely banging live drum. 😉

This awesome backyard wedding took place in Ham Lake, Minnesota at Anisse’s childhood home. Anisse & Elijah’s original plan was to have their wedding festivities at the Lumber Exchange in Minneapolis before Covid postponed them the first time. Then, when the pandemic lingered on further into the next year, they decided that instead of postponing again that they’d just pivot to a backyard celebration. Now, this was right in June of 2021 when case rates were plummeting, people were getting vaccinated by the millions, restrictions were lifted, and the Delta variant hadn’t yet wreaked its havoc. This was the first wedding that truly felt free in that regard, and also one of the last of the year that felt this way too.

One nice thing about having a backyard wedding is that you can plan to take your photos anywhere you like. In this instance, we made stops for photos around the University of Minnesota since their story began outside of Blarney’s in Dinkytown. I love shooting at the U of M as they have such amazing architecture (like the Weisman Art Museum) along with rich and vibrant landscaping all around. And although we fought against rain the whole day, we made the most of it, and the party bus stayed rocking.

When we returned to the backyard wedding setup, the party kicked off with a traditional Lebanese wedding dance and set the perfect high-energy tone for the rest of the evening. There was amazing food, touching speeches, and one heck of a dance party. What an absolute blast this one was!

Here’s a highlight reel of images from the day, followed by the complete vendor list to help you throw your own backyard wedding in Minnesota. I’ll also include an extended image gallery for those that want to see even more. Cheers!