Asheville Mountain Top Engagement Session

Mike & Caroline came up from Florida for their engagement in the Blue Ridge Mountains; little did they know that we'd have to hike uphill on the wrong trail and embrace the chilly mountains winds in process! Looking at the magic that preceded from our mountain top overlook, I'd say it was completely worth it. Not only was this adventure breathtaking, but also gives us a good story to tell

Caroline & Mike: Mike and I met over 8 years ago and we started dating on March 2, 2009. We were just babies in High School that met playing volleyball, a sport we both love and continue to play today. About 4 months into our relationship the Pixar movie, Up, hit theaters. Both being Disney fans and loving animated movies we made a date night out of it. When the movie was over and we were walking back to the car, Mike said he loved me for the first time. Since that moment we have always incorporated Up into our life. From themed anniversary gifts to our very own Adventure Book, it was a movie that marked a special moment in time for us.

When it was time to go to college I chose to attend the University of South Florida in Tampa and Mike attended Palm Beach State College. Although we spent 4 years of our relationship long distance, we are both extremely independent people with similar goals in life so the long distance thing (although not without trials and tribulations) worked for us. After college Mike moved to Tampa where today we both call home and we adopted a little blue pit bull puppy which we named Ellie, after a character from Up.

Fast forward to Memorial Day weekend, Sunday, June 28th, 2017 we were both hanging out in the pool at my parent’s house. Out of nowhere, Ellie runs through the screen door with a bouquet of colorful balloons attached to her back and a mini Adventure Book containing a ring. Once we were able to capture Ellie (she was running wild with all of the balloons on her back) Mike took the adventure book off of Ellie’s back and got down on one knee. I was completely in shock. It was the most perfect, thoughtful and magical moment that I could have ever dreamed of and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

So how did we end up on the top of a mountain in North Carolina for our engagement pictures? Well, I’m a wedding photographer and I take hundreds of couples engagement photos around the state of Florida. Not that Florida isn’t beautiful, but I knew I had and wanted to do something completely different. So we hopped in the car and drove ten hours from Tampa to Asheville and then two more hours north to get to Rough Ridge Lookout for our engagement shoot. On our drive into the mountains, both of our phones lost service so we had to count mile markers until we reached our destination. After a thirty-minute hike up the mountain in our dress clothes we made it to the overlook. I couldn’t have asked for a better evening (even though it was rainy, cold and windy it added to the dark and romantic mood I was hoping to achieve), a better photographer or a more ideal location for our photos. Adventure it out there, you just need to go find it.