We’re so excited to share this Vermont fall engagement session at Stowe Mountain and Von Trapp Family Lodge with you today! When we first Zoomed with Elizabeth and Nick about their Vermont wedding in spring 2022, we told them that going to see Vermont in the fall was on our bucket list. There’s just something so magical about being in New England in the fall. New Englanders just really know how to do fall. They embrace the pumpkins, the apple cider, the donuts and the town decor in an unparalleled way, and of course, when you combine that with the sprawling landscapes and incredible trees, we’ve heard Vermont is one of the very places to experience fall. So the four of us quickly started dreaming up meeting there for a destination engagement session.
As two kids who grew up in the desert, we never had the experience of living in a place where the seasons change. That was one of the things we were looking forward to the most about moving east of the Mississippi! We will, of course, always love and appreciate the gorgeous natural beauty of the Arizona desert, but it looks almost exactly the same year round. Growing up, fall leaves were something we only saw on tv (specifically on one of our all-time favorite shows, Gilmore Girls, which has had us wishing we could live in their fictional town of Stars Hollow for decades) so getting to see them in person feels like pure magic to us.
We planned a quick weekend trip to make this session happen, where we would fly in on Friday, shoot on Saturday, and leave Sunday, but when heavy rain started creeping into the forecast, we made a last minute call to pivot, and shoot the session to Friday to try to beat the rain. Easier said than done! Nick is a second grade teacher, and had to find a last minute substitute. Elizabeth had to scramble and reschedule her appointments. And we had to wake up at 4am to catch the first flight out, make a connecting flight, travel all day, change in a bathroom, secure a rental car and drive an hour to our location, but miraculously, we all pulled it off, and we are SO thankful because the next day, it poured rain!
That’s probably what made getting a little surprise GLOW during this session feel SO exciting and unexpected! It was a super cloudy, cold day, but for about twenty minutes, the sun peeked through the clouds at just the right moment and we got some of our favorite images from the session. We have so many favorites from this day that it was almost impossible to narrow down the images, but we’re so excited to share these with you.
The locations Elizabeth chose were beyond epic and we were in a total photographer’s paradise. We rode a ski lift up to the top of Stowe Mountain Resort, and the views were absolutely breathtaking. Then we drove to the beautiful Trapp Family Lodge (where we got the gorgeous glow!) And, yes, Von Trapp as in those Von Trapps! Sound of Music Von Trapps! Our moms are both die hard Sound of Music fans, so we were each raised on the movie and soundtrack as kids, and it was so cool to get to see where the real Von Trapps settled after leaving Austria in 1942!
Elizabeth and Nick, thank you for trusting us to capture your love. You are two of the kindest, warmest, most genuine people and it’s such an honor for us to be your photographers! Thank you for welcoming us to Vermont and for all the sweet gifts! Thank you for being up for anything. For re-arranging your lives to make this shoot work. For trekking up a mountain (and running in heels!) For freezing your tails off, and never once complaining about it. For putting up with us and the amount of times we’d exclaim, “Ooh! Stop right there! Just one more!” over and over and over. You are the kind of couple that makes us feel so unbelievably grateful we get to call this “work.”
