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Orca pod crashes Quadra Island wedding

鈥楾hat鈥檚 a pretty good good way to start your marriage off鈥 鈥 wedding videographer
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A pod of about seven orcas swam by as Blake and Morgan Belton exchanged their vows. Photo courtesy Alyssa Gaiga Productions

Getting married on the beaches of Quadra Island is already a magical experience, but for newlyweds Blake and Morgan Belton something unexpected was in store.

From the beginning of the day on Saturday, the couple and their guests kept seeing orcas playing around in the water just by the wedding venue.

The couple had just finished with their ceremony, and had gone down to the beach to do a private vow exchange. Luckily, their photo and video crew was part of that exchange, because as they finished, a pod of about seven orcas surfaced just off the beach.

鈥淲e had decided to privately say our vows instead of doing it in our ceremony and so right at sunset, we wandered down to the beach,鈥 said bride Morgan Belton. 鈥淲e said our vows to each other and then we stood up to give each other a hug and our photographers were like, 鈥榟ey that sounded like a whale.鈥

鈥淲e all turned around and this pot of orcas just jumped out of the water in front of us and we just stood there for probably 10 minutes and watch them swim by us. And it was like a little pod; a little family. There was like a mom, dad and a baby,鈥 she said. 鈥淚t was so special and so sweet. We heard all of our guests cheering and we thought they were cheering for us taking our photos and they were watching them as well. The DJ even put on the Free Willy soundtrack.鈥

鈥淭hat鈥檚 a pretty good good way to start your marriage off,鈥 said videographer Alyssa Gaiga.鈥漌e talked about it afterwards and, like, I don鈥檛 know if there鈥檚 like a better sign of good luck or what but that鈥檚 definitely a sign.鈥

Gaiga, who was shooting video of the ceremony, said that though she was used to capturing beautiful moments between couples, 鈥淚t鈥檚 very rare that like I normally get to shoot wildlife as Majestic as the whales.鈥

鈥淣ormally, it鈥檚 just a dog carrying some rings down the aisle or something like that some sort of family pet. So it鈥檚 pretty cool that we actually were there and got to witness that,鈥 she said. 鈥淭he timing was just perfect.鈥

The Beltons also felt that the whales were auspicious. Morgan said that they did some research into the spiritual meaning of orcas, and found that 鈥渋t was love, family and protection.

鈥淲e just felt like it was such a sign that our marriage was going to be often such this wonderful first foot and we just so lucky.鈥

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marc.kitteringham@campbellrivermirror.com

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鈥橳hat鈥檚 a pretty good good way to start your marriage off鈥 said photographer Alyssa Gaiga. Photo courtesy Alyssa Gaiga productions


Marc Kitteringham

About the Author: Marc Kitteringham

I joined Black press in early 2020, writing about the environment, housing, local government and more.
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