Some love stories ask to be witnessed not by crowds, but by mountains. When Jamie and Anthony invited us to document their Yosemite elopement, we knew we were stepping into something beautifully honest.

Their journey began at the courthouse during those quiet pandemic days. But their celebration was waiting for them in the valley – where fog dances between ancient trees and light breaks through in ways that make you hold your breath.

We met in the blue darkness before sunrise, that magical space where the world is just beginning to wake. Jamie arrived with a secret – a ring Anthony didn’t know was coming. The kind of surprise that shows how love continues to unfold, even after the paperwork is signed.

As golden light touched the granite faces around us, we watched them become defined against the vastness. There’s an intimacy that happens in huge spaces – something about standing together before such immensity seems to distill relationships down to their core essence.

The valley welcomed us with arms of rolling fog. We followed where it led us, capturing moments of Jamie and Anthony simply being themselves in this cathedral of stone and light. These weren’t posed moments – they were real ones. Then of course, that pivotal moment – Jamie standing back to back, ring in hand, Anthony’s expression shifting from confusion to joy. A circle of metal passing between them, completing something that had already begun.

When you strip away expectations, what remains is startlingly pure. Two people centering their day around exactly what matters to them – sunrise in Yosemite, surprising each other, following the fog, finding perfect light in places we couldn’t have planned.

As photographers, days like these remind us why we do what we do. We’re not just documenting events – we’re preserving feelings. The quiet anticipation before a surprise. The way someone looks at their person when that person is looking elsewhere. The smallness and bigness of being human in wild places.

Here’s to dawns and promises and all the adventures waiting ahead.