Blake + Susan's Wedding at Joshua Tree National Park

By Jada Parrish

Posted: 05/02/18

Category: Wedding Photography

Last month, we headed out to California to photograph my Uncle Blake's wedding in Joshua Tree. My uncle was the man who swore he'd never get married again, but then he met the love of his life, Susan, and all of that changed. I've never seen him so happy, and it was so special to get to document this day for him.

Joshua Tree is a very special place for the two of them. They are both musicians and whenever they need a little creative solace, The Joshua Tree Inn is where they go. It's very fitting because throughout the years the inn became and iconic place for musicians to retreat to. The legendary Gram Parson's died in room 8 of the inn...so of course that is the room my uncle and Susan had to have for their wedding night.

The wedding weekend was such a blast. They rented out the entire inn, so we had the whole place all to ourselves. My uncle's musician friends came to perform on the stage for the reception, and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

As I said before, in the 1970's Gram Parson's died in room 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn and it's known to be haunted. The first night we stayed there I slept like a baby, but the night of the wedding, I was scared to death.

David and I were sound asleep when all of a sudden we woke up to a loud crashing noise. At first we thought it was my brother playing a trick on us, but it was the middle of the night and everyone else was in bed. We tried to go back to sleep but kept hearing a noise that sounded like rocks falling from the ceiling of our room onto the floor. We heard cracking noises and felt a strange presence around us. We were TERRIFIED. We had made plans to get up at 5:30am that morning to take sunrise photos in the desert, and I remember staring at the clock at 3:30am and counting the minutes until I could finally get out of bed.

The next morning we found out that we weren't the only ones freaking out that night. My mom, brother, and sister's friend Elena all experienced the same thing we did. SO moral of the story is....it's definitely haunted.

It really was an unforgettable trip!! And Congratulations to my Uncle Blake + Susan!