Julie and Esteban’s Foggy Wedding at The Cliffs at Glassy Chapel

Julie was referred to me by one of my favorite fellow wedding vendors, Cassandra who runs Alpha Omega Weddings, and chose me to photograph her destination wedding at The Cliffs at Glassy Chapel! Julie and her fiancé Esteban lived in Houston, TX and chose the foothills of South Carolina for their wedding, site unseen, and their whole family would be traveling in from Miami, FL for the big day.

Their wedding was going to be in February, and we scheduled their engagement session for a weekend that they would be in town visiting in November. The day of their engagement session, I start my drive to the Blue Ridge Parkway where we had planned the session, only to realize when almost reaching the destination that they had closed it because of the tiniest amount of ice! I went into panic mode, especially because there is barely any service up on the BRP and I couldn’t get in touch with Julie for about 30 minutes! I finally got my call to go through to her, and she explained that they ran into the same problem, but at another entrance to the parkway about 30 minutes away. We couldn’t reschedule for another day because they were headed home to Houston the next day, so we chose the nearest location we could still get to in time before the sun went down, Looking Glass Falls. We ended up having a great session and got everything done that we needed to, but Julie was slightly disappointed that we didn’t get the mountain backdrop that she had been hoping for.

Fast forward to the wedding day, and it was rainy, cold, and foggy when I pulled into Aurora Farms, where everyone was getting ready + where the reception would be following the ceremony at the Chapel. The rain ended up stopping, but the fog only became more intense as we drove up the mountain to the chapel, so much so that we couldn’t even see the chapel from the parking lot! Once again, Julie didn’t get the mountain backdrop that she had been hoping for. But, not to fear, if there’s one thing that this photographer can get excited about, it’s moody fog. It felt like we were in the Scottish Highlands with the ruins and mountains surrounding us, and that’s what we channeled in these photos. Weather is obviously never something you can control on your wedding day, and as a photographer it can change the whole vision and mood of what you thought the day was going to look like, but hey, that’s the fun of it! These are some of my favorite wedding photos I’ve ever done, and I’m so thankful for photographing one of the foggiest wedding days at The Cliffs at Glassy Chapel.