Melissa + Ryan’s St. Mary’s Glacier Elopement

Melissa and Ryan’s St Mary’s Glacier elopement was one of my favorite weddings I photographed all summer. I absolutely love hiking, so what could possibly be better than getting to combine my love for hiking with photographing an adventurous outdoor elopement? I’m so glad this couple chose such a personal and intimate way of getting married, with their closest friends and family hiking up to St Mary’s Glacier with them.

I started my day by photographing Melissa getting ready at the Renaissance Denver Downtown City Center. I’m so in love with the photos where Melissa is putting on her hiking boots under her wedding dress! When you’re hiking almost two miles to your ceremony site you want comfy boots, so she saved her sparkly heels for their reception dinner in Denver that evening.

After getting ready, we all drove up to St Mary’s Glacier for the elopement ceremony. I hiked up with the bride and her friends, and the groom followed a while behind us with his friends. I love that Melissa and Ryan chose to wait for him to see her walking down the trail – it was such a cute moment!

As is typical with Colorado in summer, the weather was changing quickly, and it kept moving from sunny to cloudy and back again, with some crazy wind thrown in for fun. The ceremony was planned for noon (because sunrise hikes are hard to plan with a kid!), which means the lighting was some of the most challenging I’ve worked with, but we were all just glad the rain stayed away.

Right after Melissa and Ryan were pronounced husband and wife by Ryan’s brother, dark storm clouds started moving in. That didn’t stop the couple from celebrating their St Mary’s Glacier elopement by cracking open their first beers as a married couple!

If you’re planning a St Mary’s Glacier elopement or a different Colorado hiking elopement of your own, I would love to chat with you about your photography so get in touch! My favorite part of photographing hiking elopements is that they can be exactly what you want them to be, from bringing a group of your closest friends along to self-solemnizing by reading your own vows with only your photographer as witness.