Moab, Utah Wedding Photographers | The Hearnes
Utah Backcountry Airstrip + Arches National Park
The idea for Erin & Scott’s elopement came from some of our wildest dreams as soon as we started becoming interested in aviation. We’ve been photographing weddings and elopements involving flight tours in Alaska for a few years now, flying in helicopters and small planes all over the state. With Moab being our home and our main location for elopements, we’d always dreamed of working aviation into our experiences here in the desert too. Callen learned to fly out here, plus in our own adventures in the Utah desert we’ve come across quite a few backcountry airstrips and made mental notes of how epic it’d be to fly into them. When Erin and Scott reached out to us to start planning their Moab elopement, we connected over our shared love for aviation. They both have family ties to the flight world and now Scott works on helicopters for the military. Once we started talking through ideas for their wedding, I mentioned our dream of flying with Redtail, a local flight tour company here in Moab, & landing on a backcountry airstrip for a remote elopement ceremony location. They were immediately on board and the plans fell into place seamlessly.
Recommended listening: Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version) by Taylor Swift
They chose to invite her three siblings (who they are both very close to) as their only guests, and our pilot Jackson lead their wedding ceremony! We started the day meeting up with Erin and Scott at Under Canvas where they were getting ready, and then shared their first look. Then we headed to the airport and piled into our private plane for one of the most epic flights I’ve ever been on. We flew over the canyonlands, pointing out familiar features and towers as we made our way across the desert to the airstrip. It was so wild to fly just thirty minutes and then arrive at a location that is a 3-4 hour drive plus a long hike! As we came in through the canyon, lowering down to the level of the mesas around us and landed on the red dirt airstrip, every single passenger was smiling ear-to-ear. We made sure to schedule plenty of time out there, so we hopped out and casually explored the area, finding little side canyons and pretty views. We even found a wash full of ancient petrified wood that seemed untouched for decades — a rare gem out here in the desert.
After some wandering around and portraits in Erin’s jumpsuit, the boys watched the clouds so Erin could change into her wedding dress with the help of her sister. We then all made our way to the very edge of the mesa for their ceremony overlooking canyons and cliffs as far as the eye could see. Our only “company” was a small bush plane that came in, landed, and took off during our time out there. Otherwise it was just us out in the desert, we might as well have been on a different planet. Their ceremony was sweet and meaningful, even Erin’s brothers were crying :)
After their ceremony & some group photos, we hiked back up to the plane for champagne and some gifts from the siblings to the bride & groom. It was the perfect way to end that portion of the day and as sad as we were to be leaving, we were all pretty psyched that we got to relive the epic experience with our gorgeous flight back to Moab!
Once we got back to the Canyonlands Airport, we headed to town for some food and a little break, but that we weren’t quite finished there! That evening, we all met back up in Arches National Park for some sunset portraits. Erin’s siblings jogged the trail to delicate arch while we wandered around a few other iconic arches and then enjoyed a classic stunning, colorful Moab sunset. This all felt like the perfect end to such an amazing day. We were exhausted but elated, everything truly came together to be the most “Erin & Scott” a day could be. Even the date seemed like a nod from the universe — it happened to fall on the 13th after a postponement, and as two huge Taylor Swift fans, Erin & I realized we’d somewhat unintentionally put together an elopement that was inspired by one of our very favorite TS music videos! And the fact that Taylor inexplicably decided to drop Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version) a few weeks before makes it feel all the more perfectly meant to be ❤️
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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.
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 cozy 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, throughout the American West, 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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