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Sue and Mike knew they didn’t want to have a traditional wedding but still wanted to invite their closest family and friends, so they eloped in Zion National Park with just a few guests! After their intimate elopement ceremony at Temple of Sinawava, we hiked around Zion for their adventure wedding portraits.
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The Hearnes Adventure Photography is run by Abbi and Callen Hearne, a husband & wife wedding photography team with an emphasis on adventure. Unless stated otherwise, all blog and social media posts are written from the perspective of Abbi! Our photography style is adventurous, full of stoke, and centered around telling a true story. We are nomadic wedding photographers living on the road, which allows us to photograph your adventures anywhere in the world. We especially love the sierra mountains in California, southwestern desert in Utah, and the glacial landscape of Alaska. We have updated passports and are willing to travel anywhere in the world.
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So, one question we get super often from our couples and people that follow us is “What do you do if the weather is bad?” and our answer is that we embrace it! Some of our very favorite photos have been because of “bad weather” and we even won an international destination wedding photography contest with a photo of a desert rainstorm in our “Plan B” location because Plan A was to run a slot canyon but we couldn’t because of the rain! We love the look of “bad weather” whether it’s the rain drops in the frame or the post-storm sunset colors, but the day of James and Nina’s session was different. It was the closest we’ve come to needing to cancel a session and re-schedule due to bad weather! But then just in time, Yosemite worked it’s magic and gave us the most epic conditions…
James and Nina’s session was our first one of the season in Yosemite and even though we’ve been up to Glacier Point probably over 100 times, I wanted to head up there early and get aquatinted (and make sure we could get parking for the big rig). Once we got settled, we were a few hours early so I headed out on a run down the trail! I ended up running to the top of Illouette Falls and spending a few minutes sitting there, soaking it in, and feeling super happy to be back in Yosemite. As I made my way back up, I admired the fog rolling in through the trees and the eerie feeling of hiking through a cloud. The fog usually moves quickly up high in the mountains, so I didn’t think anything of it when I got back to Glacier Point and the views were completely white-out. I figured it’d pass within a few minutes! But an hour later, as James and Nina were bout to arrive, it was still zero visibility. We couldn’t even see the trees 30 feet from us! Callen and I began discussing back up options. I was pretty set on heading down to the valley below the fog layer as soon as they arrived because I didn’t want to burn the last of the day light waiting on the cloud to move. When they arrived, I started to explain how the fog had been there for a solid two hours and we didn’t want to count on it clearing, when Callen said “wait, I see blue sky! Yeah, we need to get out to the point right now!” so we grabbed our things and practically ran out there…and as soon as we got out the clouds opened and Half Dome poked through the top. It was one of the most epic things I’ve ever seen. A perfect inversion like this is SO rare in Yosemite, the cloud layer below was super thick and above was perfectly clear. It was stunning! We took some photos, and then I turned around and saw the epic sun rays streaming through the trees and fog behind us, so we photographed that too! It was so awesome in every direction, the four of us felt like we were dreaming!
We spent the remainder of the evening wander around, watching the clouds move and cover Half Dome, then clear, and weave their way through the trees. It was super cool, and once again, “bad weather” was waaaaay more fun than blue bird skies! I will note, there was certainly a chance that the sky stayed fully white-out all evening, in which case we would have either gone to Yosemite Valley where the clouds were higher above ground level (because the Valley is 3,000 feet lower than Glacier Point), or we would have looked into rescheduling their session for a date that worked in our schedule. James and Nina did an adventure session with us (meaning, this wasn’t their wedding day - more on that below) but if this had been an elopement day, we would have had a lot more time booked to deal with weather changes and take photos before it got “down to the wire” with day light. This is one of the reasons we book a minimum of 4 hours with a couple on their wedding day, and often encourage 6-8 hours or more, because weather is very unpredictable and it’s always better to have extra time than feel like you didn’t have enough! I always tell couples I can make amazing photos happen in 20 minutes, but ideally we have multiple hours to hike, chat, take portraits, explore, and have a laid-back vibe for the day!
We also often get questions about these wedding portrait sessions — where a couple chooses to meet up with us somewhere epic for wedding portraits before or after their actual wedding day! We only do few of these sessions a year (we reserve most of our adventure sessions for engagements!) but Yosemite is a really popular spot for them! A session like this is perfect for couples that are having a more traditional wedding, or their wedding location/timing didn’t line up with our schedule, so they can be flexible and meet us wherever we are for a shorter two hour photo session in their wedding clothes! One misunderstanding is that we do not allow these sessions to be an “elopement” or have any sort of ceremony, because we truly believe your wedding day deserves much more than two hours! We also put a ton of work into planning a timeline, adventures, vendors, and so on into wedding days, so we have a bigger minimum package for elopements. All of this is based on our three+ years of experience working with these kinds of weddings and settings, and what has made the most sense for us!
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The Hearnes Adventure Photography is run by Abbi and Callen Hearne, a husband & wife wedding photography team with an emphasis on adventure. They live on the road as full-time nomads, allowing them to serve a large portion of the western US. You can typically find them in Moab, Utah or Yosemite National Park, California, with side-quests to Patagonia and Alaska. They believe love is the greatest adventure and strive to create photos that are epic, romantic, true, and timeless.
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Erika and Grant had a beautiful destination wedding in Yosemite National Park with their closest friends and family followed by a beautiful styled reception at an AirBnB in Oakhurst
Kim and Mike’s adventurous jeep elopement was such an amazing example of how well things go when our couples trust us on their elopement day! When Kim first reached out to me, she explained that she grew up going on road trips with her dad, and something about my photos on instagram felt nostalgic and really reminded her of those road trips out west. Neither Kim or Mike had ever been to Moab, but our photos of the red desert and vast landscapes really drew them in! They trusted our guidance and handed us the reigns to plan out their amazing day, from vendor recommendations to their location (which changed last minute — more on that later!) and even their decision to rent a Jeep. It was also super important to them to include Kim’s beautiful daughter, Chloe (when Kim sent a photo of them together, I was blown away by how much they looked alike!!), and they invited Mike’s closest friend to join them as their officiant and “honorary best man.”
When we began planning wedding locations in Moab, I suggested a few different options including spots in Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park, and various BLM spots around the area. Kim mentioned they wanted to go somewhere remote, and when I asked how they felt about renting a Jeep to get out far away from people, they were down! Our original spot was down a long dirt road, then a shorter 4x4 Jeep road, and then a mile hike out to the edge of a cliff that I knew would almost certainly be void of any other people. We planned out their timeline, prepped them for the hike out and the hike back in the dark after staying out until sunset. But the desert has a mind of its own, and as their wedding date approached we all watched the spring forecast bring in occasional storms all week. The day of their wedding the forecast was still pretty unpredictable, but Callen and I had a few back-up ideas in mind if a storm came in.
The day of their elopement, Kim met up with Lesley Lind, one of our favorite hair and make up artists in Utah! Kim is a wedding hair and make up artist herself, so the fact that she loved working with Lesley should be a testament to how amazing she is! They picked up their Jeep and met us at a park north of Moab so we could show them the way out to their ceremony location. As we stopped at the turn to gas up our Jeeps, we saw a storm rolling in from the west but hoped it would stay out there and not come our way! On the drive out to our dirt road turn-off, it rained a little on us and we discussed how miserable it would be to be a mile from the cars in the event that a heavy storm rolled in. Callen and I pulled off and I ran over to their Jeep with a back up plan. I showed Kim and Mike a few phone photos from a spot nearby we’d scouted a couple weeks prior. It was of course still possible we’d get rained on at the second spot, but we’d be right at the cars if it did come, so taking shelter would be easy. They loved the second spot, so we changed the plans! We led them out to this beautiful secret spot, where we drove right up to the edge of the canyon and, as we guessed, had it all to ourselves. It turned out the rain decided to hold off for us and we had all afternoon to explore the wild area! As we walked around soaking it in, Kim and Mike couldn’t get over how glad they were they trusted us to pick their location, and how beautiful this “plan B” was!
They picked a little ledge for their ceremony and as both Chloe and Kim came down the “aisle” between our two Jeeps (so Moab!) it started to hit Kim and Mike just how momentous this was. Mike hadn’t seen her dress until their ceremony, and he was absolutely blown away. Side note, Kim had originally fallen in love with her Ines Di Santo dress, but decided it was out of her budget, so she went with one she still loved but wasn’t “the one.” When Mike learned about this, he insisted she go back and get the dress she loved. Such a small gesture in the grand scheme of things, but it was SO sweet to see him look at her in that dream dress, and know for a fact there were no regrets! Their vows to each other were so sweet, and Chloe read her own words on family and commitment — I’m pretty sure we all cried. After their ceremony, we all hiked around, taking photos and exploring the beautiful sandstone landscape! Mike was a ball of energy, doing back flips and handstands, and scrambling on rocks that make all of our hearts skip a beat!! We settled down for a little picnic of french friends, pretzels, and burgers compliments of the Moab Brewery, and amazingly, the rain never came! After a few final moments soaking in the views at their desert ceremony location, we packed up the Jeeps and took the adventurous route to town, stopping at a few overlooks along the way and finally stopping just before the pavement to sign their marriage license in the moonlight and do one final dance in the Jeep’s headlights. Kim and Mike had such a beautiful, adventurous elopement day in the Moab desert, and as we drove home afterwards Callen and I kept talking about how much it means to us when our couples trust us to such a high degree. None of this would have been possible without that trust, and getting to help people have their dream adventure wedding in a place they’ve never been before, and have it fully exceed any expectations is such an amazing thing!
Also, all Moab weddings are better with Jeeps!
Photographers: The Hearnes Adventure Photography
Bride’s Dress: Ines Di Santo
Bride’s Hair + Make Up: Lesley Lind
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The Hearnes Adventure Photography is run by Abbi and Callen Hearne, a husband & wife wedding photography team with an emphasis on adventure. They live on the road as full-time nomads, allowing them to serve a large portion of the western US. You can typically find them in Moab, Utah or Yosemite National Park, California, with side-quests to Patagonia and Alaska. They believe love is the greatest adventure and strive to create photos that are epic, romantic, true, and timeless.
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