Asheville AirBnB Mountain Elopement
To share with you Alex and Zach’s elopement story we would have to rewind to May 2020 when I got my first DM in Instagram from Alex. We started DM’ing about how Alex wants to elope in the mountains but she would have to get Zach on board. Anytime I posted about elopements, locations, ideas, etc. Alex would slide into my DM’s joking about eloping, and that she would hit me up in like a year. And then almost one year later I get a message that they were finally ENGAGED! Now the real scheming starts when Alex emails me with a subject line “Mission: Elopement”, telling me that Zach is partially on board but wants to know more. So we chat about timeline options, including guests, mountain locations etc. etc. After many more DM’s and emails Alex let’s me know that Zach is not only onboard but excited about the intimate wedding plans she had been dreaming about. (Possibly due to some sticker shock when planning a big wedding, haha.) I think when we both finally signed that contract in October 2021 we all did a happy dance! And then another in May 2022 when we finally got to celebrate their marriage in the most perfect way to them.
Wedding planning is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster and most times you aren’t totally sure what you want until you’re in the thick of planning. Because how do you know how much things really cost? And, how do you know how consuming it will be to plan a party with 200 guests? And how do you know what options there are for intimate weddings or elopements? I’ve had couples tell me both, “Well we started planning a big traditional wedding and then with the stress and costs realized that wasn’t really what we wanted.” AND “We initially decided to elope just the two of us at the courthouse but decided we did want to include a few family members and have a nice setting.”
PRO TIP: Give yourself some time and grace while wedding planning to figure out what you really want. Remember, it is ok to change your mind!
Alex and Zach came together with a perfect compromise for their wedding celebration. They would start the morning off at sunrise with their own private portrait time in the Blue Ridge Mountains, then head back to their airbnb for breakfast and relaxation until their intimate ceremony on the airbnb deck with a few friends and family. After their ceremony they would head to a private dinner in downtown Asheville at Rhubarb.
One of the benefits of a split timeline like I described here, and the small number of people included in an elopement, is the flexibility it allows you to have. A few days before their elopement rain started to move in for the weekend ahead. Alex had expressed to me that the portrait time in the mountains was her biggest priority and while we can make magic happen with the rain it isn’t ideal. Fortunately due to our schedules we were able to do their portrait time another day that weekend. I asked if they felt like it took away from their day to do their first look and portraits on a different day prior to the ceremony. They said not at all, it actually made them feel more relaxed on both days and they enjoyed extending the celebration over the whole weekend. And what a weekend it was.