California has forests aplenty, but I guess there’s only one that makes a perfect backdrop for celebrating both everlasting love and church burning.
Black metal band Coldvoid was prowling around in Holy Jim Canyon, using the light of the full moon to get some menacing promo shots when they stumbled upon perhaps the least metal scene on Earth: John Awesome and Nydia Hernandez, who were having their engagement photos shot by photographer Janet Wheeland.
“It was a completely random encounter,” one Coldvoid member told Buzzfeed. “We were there taking photos for our band and our drummer Zack’s girlfriend took our photos. The couple approached us with their photographer and we chatted for a bit, and then they asked to take a photo and we were happy to do it.”
Awesome told ABC that they were wrapping the session up when they noticed “a few guys with some corpse paint makeup on sitting at a nearby bench blaring out some black metal music,” as one does. The couple, who had earlier in the day taken some shots themed after Awesome’s favorite movie Forrest Gump, decided a fitting end to the day would be to invite the long-haired men to join. “Super nice people. I seriously can’t make this stuff up,” he said.
Congrats to the happy couple, and hail Satan!
Update: Coldvoid’s Zak Buser, aka Uraeus, told Jezebel that Holy Jim Canyon isn’t an especially uncommon spot for photo shoots, being that it’s one of the more popular hiking destinations in Orange County. Still, he said that he and his bandmates had a nice time hanging out with Awesome and Hernandez, and were more than happy to lend their flaming candelabrum to the couple’s special day.
The band has not yet decided whether they’ll use the couple’s photos in their promo materials. Asked whether engagement photos are metal or not metal, Uraeus laughed pleasantly. “I would say they’re normally not metal,” he said.
