Glacier Elopement in Alaska
the hearnes » adventure elopement photographers
Reece & May’s Elopement Day-After Session Hiking on a Glacier in Alaska
If you’ve been keeping up with the elopements shared on our blog, you couldn’t have missed May and Reece’s beautiful wedding in a remote coastal town in Alaska! When they first reached out to us, their only criteria for their elopement location was somewhere in the mountains, ideally with a waterfall. We knew Alaska was the perfect option for them, so we started planning and suggested one of our favorite areas in the whole state. As we were planning everything out, I had the idea of doing a day-after session at one of our favorite glaciers in the area, and they were totally down! This session was so much fun, and is a perfect example of why we reccomend two day elopements, especially considering how dynamic and varied the wild places we shoot are. It’s impossible to capture the full scope of Alaska in one day, but two days and a bit of driving makes it a bit more attainable!
On Reece and May’s elopement day, we explored high mountain tops, waterfalls, a beautiful glacial river, dirt roads, and an iceberg lake at sunset. The following day, we all slept in late (very needed after the 2:30am wake up call for sunrise on their elopement day!), grabbed breakfast in town, and then drove a few hours out to a beautiful glacier that Callen and I have spending a lot of our time in Alaska exploring. We knew this one would be perfect because the access area is flatter and easier to navigate than some of the other glaciers we spent time on, and the views are absolutely stunning! Reece and May had never been on a glacier before, and even though it wasn’t included in their original criteria for their elopement, they both agreed it was a highlight of their trip!
We met back up in the parking lot and they changed into their wedding clothes again (May’s skirt might have still been wet from the waterfall the day before!) and this time, put some spikes on their feet so they could safely navigate the ice! We spend the evening alone on the glacier, hiking around, and finding tiny caves and crevasses. The sky was so beautiful with occasional clouds and golden sunlight streaming through — pretty rare for Alaska! Also, one of my favorite things about summer in Alaska: it was about 65 degrees outside, so not even *too* cold! Callen and I have been loving these relatively warm days up here, perfect for ice climbing, paddling on the lakes, and finding cool canyons and caves to escape the sun :)
I was so glad these two went for the day-after session because we were not at allllll ready to say goodbye to them when the time came. We ended up eating cake and hanging out well past sunset, and then said goodbye with the promise we’d hang out again sooner rather than later.
REECE + MAY’s ELOPEMENT DAY
A note on two day elopements:
Pretty much any time we first start talking with couples, they can’t imagine needing more than 6 hours with us because, lets be honest, a 6 hour photo shoot already sounds intimidating and kind of heinous to endure! But firstly, we aren’t putting cameras in your face for those full six hours! We break up the day, often spending time hiking, kayaking, exploring, driving between locations, etc. And most elopements, we even divide the booked time up between sunrise and sunset! We always plan/reccomend more hours than we think we’ll need to accommodate for unexpected delays like traffic, hair and make up taking longer than planned, hiking being a bit more difficult in a big dress, and so on! We also like to give our couples plenty of time to enjoy the area and not feel like everything they did on their wedding day was for a photoshoot — even though we make the photoshoot time really fun and relaxed too :)
The primary reason we reccomend two days is when our couple has guests, especially if its more than 20-25 people in attendance. We always want to plan and facilitate a lot of time for our couples to enjoy their guests, chat with each of them, hike with them, and at the same time, we want to block out plenty of time with just the four of us so our couples aren’t feeling like they’re hosting people the whole time. When it comes to bigger groups like 20-40 people, we’ve found that designating a whole day to their guests and a while day to just each other really helps all of their time count and not feel rushed or overwhelming. The other huge benefit of that is we have more flexibility with what we can do! For instance, we could go backpacking the first day and do photos at sunset + sunrise in a remote location, then hike down and take a shower/rest break before meeting up in the afternoon for their ceremony, a smaller group hike, and dinner with their guests! Or, do an elopement day with a short hike to their ceremony location, a catered dinner somewhere beautiful, and a little “reception” with their guests, and then some rad adventure the next day like canyoneering, a helicopter-packrafting trip, ice climbing…the options are endless!
When planning an adventure elopement, creativity and dreaming big will be your best friends. We encourage our couples to dream up their best vacation yet — if they had two days in an incredible place to plan whatever they wanted, what would it entail? We usually start there and even though two days sounds like a lot in the beginning, it turns out to be absolutely incredible and packed with wonderful moments that they’ll never forget. We love coming up with ideas, and it’s so fun to see the things that different couples are drawn to. I’m curious, if you had two days in your dream location, what would you do with them?
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The Hearnes Adventure Photography is run by Abbi and Callen Hearne, a husband & wife elopement wedding photography (and planning!) team with a major emphasis on adventure. Unless stated otherwise, all blog and social media posts are written from the perspective of Abbi!
We’ve completely built our life around adventures in beautiful places, and one of our greatest joys is sharing the adventure with our couples. We lived on the road full time for a few years and then fell in love with a little house in the desert of Moab, Utah; our favorite place throughout all of our travels. We still spend about half of the year living on the road, traveling to more favorites like Alaska, Yosemite National Park, and beyond.
We use our extensive experience and expertise in the outdoors to plan unforgettable custom elopement days for every couple. We usually work with couples to plan everything from their elopement location down to the vendors they’ll work with and the timeline of the day(s) we’ll spend together. We always shoot together and we have kept things intentionally small, working with a limited amount of couples each year such that we can bring our full value to every single planning email, phone call, and of course, elopement day!
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