Mikeala & Stanton’s sunrise engagement session at Rough Ridge was epic for multiple reasons.
Summers in North Carolina are riddled with thunderstorms. From June to September you can bet on at least a few showers or storms ruining your afternoon plans ESPECIALLY in the mountains. So anytime my couples want to do a mountain session I try to set aside another day just in case.

This time tho I didn’t have that opportunity. I had a wedding the day before and Mikaela & Stanton were coming all the way from Wilmington (5 hours away) for their epic mountain session. The one day we had booked called for a washout in the afternoon. It was too close to the shoot to reschedule their Air BNB so we opted for a sunrise shoot instead of a normal afternoon shoot.

I won’t lie, shooting a 12 hour wedding the day before, getting 2ish hours of sleep, and then hiking a mountain in time for the sunrise isn’t something I’d recommend you do on a regular basis. However, sometimes we have to put our comfort aside to make our couple’s dreams come true. And it was 100% worth it!

Not only are these photos beautiful, but we had the whole mountain to ourselves. It was so nice not having to work around people. I would definitely do a sunrise shoot again, but hopefully I’ll get a little more sleep the next time around.

XOXOXO,
Mabyn