Elopement Sessions

An elopement photographer for the ones who said let's just go.

Charlotte-based. Available across North Carolina, the Blue Ridge, and wherever your story is happening. A backyard. A mountaintop. A courthouse. A coastline. Rome, if Rome is where you're going.

CATURE YOUR MOMENT

You didn't have a small wedding because you couldn't afford a big one.

You had a small wedding because you knew what mattered.

You knew it the whole time, even when the pressure to do it the big way was loudest. You knew it when you started saying let's just go and meant it. You knew it when you imagined the day and what you imagined wasn't a ballroom it was the two of you, and maybe a handful of people who love you, and a place that meant something.

You chose this on purpose.

The photographs of a day like this need to honor that. Not perform it for an audience. Not turn it into something it wasn't. Just hold it the quiet, the smallness, the yes-this-is-exactly-right-ness of it, so you can have it forever.

That's the work I want to do for you.

Less production. More presence.

Here's what an elopement day with me looks like, in practice.

I show up early. I drink coffee with you while you're getting ready. I photograph the parts most photographers miss, the way your hands shake a little when you're putting on the dress, the way he reads the vows one more time and tears up before anyone else gets there, the way the light comes through the window onto the bed where you'll get ready.

I'm with you for the ceremony, however small it is. The two of you. A handful of people, maybe. An officiant, maybe just one of your friends with a license. I don't direct, I don't pose, I don't interrupt. I'm watching. I'm catching the look on his face when he sees you. The way her voice breaks on the third line of her vows. The way you both laugh, all the way through it, because of course you do.

And then after, we go somewhere. A hike, a drive, a long walk, a meal, all of it. I follow your day. I'm not running a timeline. I'm making photographs of the most important day of your life, the way you actually wanted to live it.

This is candid, lifestyle, deeply-paid-attention-to work. The kind of elopement photography that will look right thirty years from now, because it never tried to look right now.

Who This Is For

This is for you if..

You're eloping because the big-wedding version of this never felt like you.
You're eloping because someone in your life is sick, or older, or far away, and you want the people who matter most there with you instead of three hundred people you barely see.
You're eloping because the wedding industry got loud and overwhelming and you both quietly looked at each other and said what if we just didn't.
You've been engaged for a long time and you finally just want to be married.
You want to elope somewhere that matters, the trail where he proposed, the city you fell in love in, a place neither of you have ever been but always wanted to go.
You're planning a destination elopement. (Italy, the Dolomites, Iceland, Greece, the Scottish Highlands, the coast of Maine. I travel happily, and I love the couples brave enough to make a day like this happen somewhere far.)
You want photographs of this day that look like you, not like a wedding magazine.

If any of those landed — we should talk.

CATURE YOUR MOMENT

Where We'll Shoot

Charlotte, the Blue Ridge, the coast or somewhere a flight away.

I'm an elopement photographer based in Charlotte, NC, and I photograph elopements all over the region — the Blue Ridge Parkway, Asheville, the Smokies, the North Carolina coast, the courthouses, the backyards, the family-cabin weekends. Some of my favorite elopements have happened within an hour of my house. Some have happened on the other side of the world.

If you're planning a destination elopement, I want to hear about it. I've shot in Rome, [list any other international locations she's worked or is open to], and the answer to would you fly to ___ for this? is almost always yes.

I travel as part of how I work. There's no flat "are you available in this state" answer with me, there's only let's talk about what you're planning and figure it out.

What's Included

What you can expect

A real conversation before the day. I want to know your story, your day, your people, what you're hoping to remember. Not a form. A conversation.

Help thinking through your day. I've photographed enough elopements to know where couples tend to get stuck, timing the ceremony, finding the right location, figuring out who to invite (and who not to), what to do about a meal, what to do with the rings before. I'm not a planner. But I have opinions, and I'll share them if you want them.

[X] hours of unhurried photography. Based on the coverage we land on. No clock-watching.

Light direction, no awkward posing. I'll guide. I won't force.

A private online gallery of [X+] edited images. Delivered within [X] weeks.

Print and album guidance, if you want it. Especially for elopement work the photographs of a day this important deserve to live somewhere other than a phone.

Investment

Elopement coverage begins at [$X].

Full pricing, what's included at each tier, and current availability are sent after we've talked.

I take on a limited number of elopements each year both because the work itself is intensive, and because I want to bring my full attention to every couple who trusts me with a day this important. If your date is set or even tentative, the sooner we connect, the better.

what my clients are saying

“Stephanie is the best at what she does!"

Name \ Session Type

You chose to do this the brave way. Let me photograph it that way too.

You already made the hard, beautiful decision to do your wedding the way that actually felt like you, not the way it was supposed to look. The photographs of that day deserve to honor the same instinct.