Love On A Mountaintop | Canton, NC

Okay y’all, this is quite possibly one of my favorite shoots I’ve ever done. Obviously I am a beach girl at heart and I absolutely LOVE doing sessions on the coast. However, being based in Wilmington it is very rare that I get the opportunity to shoot the beauty of the NC mountains. So this weekend in July was one I had been looking forward to for a very long time. I had booked an AirBnb in Marshall, NC for one of my sweet couple’s weddings that weekend and asked my friend Kelsey to come along as my second shooter. I was so excited that she was able to join me AND that she had the fabulous idea to make the most out of our time in the mountains with a styled shoot the day before the wedding. I was totally on board and couldn’t wait to shoot on top of a mountain in the clouds! I also brought my friend Morgan along as an assistant for the weekend (she is also a super talented aspiring photographer!). It was such fun to be able to bring these two along with me on the trip. I would have brought Jordan along to keep me company but it happened to be his bachelor party weekend, so I was so happy to have people to take the drive with me and stay in the cabin with! Not to mention they were both a HUGE help on the wedding day Saturday.

Leading up to the weekend, Kelsey reached out to some of her “friendors” in the triangle area and snagged the most AMAZING WEDDING GOWN I’ve ever seen from Uniquely U Bridal, and the perfect bouquet and boutonnière to match it from Folie A Deux. We packed everything into the car and hit the road to the western side of our state. We arrived at our cutest little Airbnb to quickly settle in, grabbed some dinner at Zoe’s Kitchen, and headed straight for Black Balsam Knob where we would be meeting our models, Molly & Ian. These two drove all the way from High Point just to model for us– how crazy cool is that?! Unfortunately I don’t seem to have very good luck driving in the mountains, because our GPS stopped working and we got totally lost on the way up the mountain. Our route should have been much simpler, but for some reason our phones took us allllll the way around to the other side of the mountain. When our GPS went out, we were forced to continue climbing up from the very bottom and all the way around. We were all so nervous that we were going to be late and miss all of the beautiful golden hour light. BUT we finally made it to the top at Black Balsam Knob and the views absolutely took our breath away. The crazy drive was completely worth it for the images that came from this session. Not to mention, it taught me a good lesson to always screen shot my directions just in case the GPS happens to lose service again out there!

All 5 of us hiked up to the most stunning views I have ever seen. We were all freaking out throughout the entire session because we just couldn’t get over the beauty. It also didn’t hurt that Molly & Ian were the sweetest couple EVER and were such a pleasure to work with. I loved shooting them as they got so cozy with each other on a literal cloud.

As we started to wrap up the night, we could hear some thunder rolling in which made us a little nervous. We used that as our signal to wrap things up and head back to the car before we ended up getting poured on. After the shoot we headed into downtown Asheville to have some late night food and a delicious beer at Wicked Weed Brewery (cause “When in Asheville,” right?). It was seriously such a GREAT day and it has me so excited to head back to the mountains for more sessions like this. I have some weddings next year in the mountains that I am super excited about. But if any of my couples happen to be down for their engagement photos in the mountains, know that you can COUNT ME IN for that!

Thank you so much to the fantastic vendors who made this little shoot possible for us. And to my dear friend Kelsey for having the incredible idea and making it come to life!

Bridal Gown: Willowby by Watters – Uniquely U Bridal
Florals: Folie A Deux Events

 

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