Backyard Elopement | Durham Wedding Photographer | Rachael & Jesse

Photographing weddings (of all sizes), I see it all. I see huge ceremonies and tiny ones, receptions where no one dances and receptions where they can’t get Aunt Kathy off the dance floor at the end of the night. There are elopements where details have been way way pared back, and there are elopements like this styled shoot for Rachael and Jesse, where the details are the best part (aside from the love, duh).

We started this day with Rachael and Jesse getting ready on their own, each with those antsy butterflies and little stresses everyone gets on a big day. The couple met up to finish getting ready together, and they made their way to the backyard.

Yes, a backyard. Elopements can be in a backyard and can be this stunning. I know, right?

With a bright pink backdrop as an altar, a table set for four for an intimate reception dinner with all of the fixings of a perfect charcuterie, an owl cake that is a piece of art unto itself, and a yellow leather jacket professing Rachael’s devotion to Jesse, the two showed us all what a refreshing, detail-forward elopement can look like. 

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from this post, it’s that if someone tells you you can’t have a charcuterie board or an owl cake at your elopement, you don’t need that negativity in your life. 

These are the elopements I live for. The ones that prove that tiny, intimate ceremonies can still be fun, can still tell a story about the happy couple through color and material and flowers, and maybe even feature a really great snack spread. What’s not to love about that.

Rental: Meez Farm Tables

Makeup: Modern Alchemy

Dress: BHLDN

Suit: The Black Tux

Cake: 10 Bloom Cakes

Flowers: Folie a Deux  

Leather Jacket: Me