caesars head state park

South Carolina Mountain Engagement | Diana & Christian

Diana and Christian moved to Greenville from Houston a few months ago. So far, they’ve loved exploring the mountains together and they really wanted fall foliage in their photos. They liked the idea of having a summit view versus having mountains in the background, so based on my descriptions, they chose Pretty Place and Caesars Head, neither of which they’d been to before. I recommended going to Pretty Place first and finishing at Caesars Head, about 20 minutes down the road, because Caesars Head faces west and has a better view of the sunset.

We checked the schedule for Pretty Place and saw that it would be open on a Monday evening at the beginning of November. Everyone talks about how pretty the view from the chapel is, but nobody talks about how it has some of the best fall foliage in South Carolina. The leaves change earlier there since it’s so much higher in elevation than Greenville, so we missed peak foliage, but we still had some beautiful color. The mountains looked orange, there was a beautiful tree with red leaves, and the leaves covered the ground in the wooded area next to the chapel.

I usually have Pandora or Spotify playing in my car, but I can’t get signal on a lot of the road that leads to Pretty Place and Caesars Head. I rolled down my window—the temperature was perfect and I could hear and smell the fall leaves. When we got to Caesars Head, we came out to the overlook first so they could take in the view. I pointed out Table Rock Mountain in the distance, and Diana and Christian told me that they reached that summit together, so it was cool for them to have that in their photos. Since it was a Monday, there weren’t a lot of people there to watch the sunset, so we almost had the overlook to ourselves. The sunset colors came through with a fall breeze that made Diana’s hair move. It was pretty much everything we could ask for in a fall engagement session in the mountains!

Enjoy some of Diana and Christian’s fall engagement photos in the mountains of South Carolina!

If you’re thinking about visiting Pretty Place or having photos done there, this post is for you.

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Engagement at Caesars Head | Amber and Logan

Amber and Logan were engaged on a beautiful fall evening at one of my favorite places in South Carolina: Caesars Head State Park!

They met and started their relationship when they were both living in Utah. They took the leap and moved across the country together when Logan accepted a job in Greenville. They love exploring the outdoors together, and Logan said that Caesars Head was on his mind for a while. From the photos he’d seen, he thought the overlook would be the perfect place to propose. He came across my photos of Melanie and Karl’s engagement there and knew that this would have to be the place.

Logan told Amber that he made a reservation at a nice restaurant that was really far out. He did make a reservation at Topsoil, which he and Amber dressed nicely for, but he told her it was farther away than it really was. Instead of bringing her to the restaurant in Travelers Rest, he continued up the windy road for a while until he reached Caesars Head. He brought her to the overlook, where he got down on one knee and asked her to marry him, using his grandma’s engagement ring.

This was a classic, slightly chilly fall evening. There were leaves all around them on the ground. We were lucky to not have many people around on this Friday evening, so we were able to use a lot more of the space on the overlook. We went down the narrow staircase and took photos in Devils Kitchen, which has a cave-like feel to it. We took some around the woods and on the walkway until the sun started to go down. I think the overlook at Caesars Head is one of the best places to see the sunset, and it made for a fantastic place to soak in the feeling of saying yes to forever.

Check out some of my favorite photos from Amber and Logan’s engagement at Caesars Head State Park!

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Proposal at Caesars Head | Melanie and Karl

I was so excited when Karl told me he wanted to propose to Melanie at one of my favorite places in all of South Carolina: the overlook at Caesars Head State Park!

Melanie and Karl live on the coast and planned to come up to the upstate for a weekend to hike in the mountains. They had heard Caesars Head was beautiful, so they wanted to check it out. Karl and I talked on the phone a few weeks before and came up with a plan for the proposal. I helped him choose a pretty trail near the Caesars Head visitor center that wouldn’t wear them out too much or take too much time. Since it’s hard to get phone signal in that area, we had to make sure we were on the same page beforehand, so I sent him a photo with what I had in mind for where he should get down on one knee:

Note that this was from the first attempt at my very first engagement session. We got all the way up there and the clouds/fog covered EVERYTHING, so we decided to come back a different day. I just sent him this one because it was the widest shot I had of the overlook.

After Melanie and Karl hiked to the Raven Cliff Falls observation deck, they came to the overlook at Caesars Head. Since it was right before Thanksgiving, there were a ton of people on the overlook, so I just stood right there taking pictures like everyone else was. Melanie waited for some people to clear away from the railing so she could take a picture on her phone. When she turned around, Karl was on one knee! The amount of happiness radiating from them in these photos is contagious, and I was smiling so much while I was editing these.  

Karl remembered that Melanie had shown him her Pinterest at one point, and that there were rings on there. He looked her profile up and chose a ring that was similar to the ones she had pinned. I thought that was a pretty good idea! I also like the red box that it was in. 

I had so much fun with these two and I hope you love their photos! 



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