pretty place chapel

South Carolina Mountain Engagement | Leah & Dejour

Dejour and Leah met on Instagram through their love of poetry. This shared love for poetry shined through at one of the most precious moments they've shared together: when Dejour so beautifully asked Leah to marry him. They had seen photos of Pretty Place on Instagram and decided they wanted to check it out next time they visited Dejour's mom in North Carolina. They had a dinner reservation in Greenville, so Leah knew to dress nicely. What Leah didn't know was that there was also a reservation for them at the chapel, and dinner was to celebrate their engagement.

When I saw Dejour and Leah walk in, they were immediately blown away by how beautiful and serene the view was. Since it was April, there were bushes at the front of the chapel with pink flowers blooming. The sky was clear, and there just so happened to be a hawk quietly flying behind the cross as they came in. They walked down the stairs together to the cross, where Dejour proposed.

Dejour found me while looking up information about Pretty Place, and decided that he should reserve the chapel. Since Pretty Place only shows the visitation schedule two weeks in advance and Dejour needed more time than that to plan, this was the only way to guarantee that it would be available for them. The other benefit to reserving the chapel is that nobody else was there, so it was quiet and not crowded at all. We got to take pictures all over the chapel without worrying about blocking anyone's view, having anyone else in the background, or having strangers watching them.

After we finished taking photos at Pretty Place, we drove down to Caesars Head State Park, which was along the way back towards Greenville. Even though the forecast had said there was a 0% chance of rain, we had a little bit of a sunshower while we were there. We took some photos at the overlook as the wind blew through the trees--a perfect place to be when you're feeling on top of the world.

Enjoy some of my favorite photos of Leah and Dejour's engagement at Pretty Place!

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South Carolina Mountain Engagement | Sydney & Dyce

Sydney and Dyce met in Charleston while Sydney was a student at College of Charleston and Dyce was a cadet at The Citadel.  Dyce remembered Sydney telling him about Pretty Place, a chapel close to where she grew up.  When they made plans to spend Easter with Sydney’s mom, Dyce decided he wanted to propose to Sydney at Pretty Place at sunrise. 

Pretty Place can be notoriously difficult to coordinate, especially for a proposal, where one person has to be unaware of what’ll happen there.  When I talked to Dyce to go over a plan for the proposal, I made sure he was well aware of how crowded Pretty Place might be, especially since it would be a Saturday and the day before Easter.  He followed my advice to get there close to when it opened, even though sunrise wasn’t for more than an hour, and he agreed that we should go take pictures at Bald Rock afterwards.  Still, there were more people there than I’d ever seen at Pretty Place, everyone was standing up to take photos, and there was even a small praise band playing.  Dyce and Sydney waited until more people had cleared out before they got in line to take pictures with the cross.  Lots of people jumped up to take a photo when Dyce got down on one knee, but I managed to still get a photo without Sydney noticing me!

After taking some photos at the small overlook next to the chapel and in the trees, we drove down to Bald Rock, where there were a lot less people and there was a lot more space.  When I took a closeup photo of Sydney’s ring, I noticed a date on her bracelet, which she told me was the date that she and Dyce started dating–super cool that she happened to be wearing it that day and it just so happened to be in a photo with her engagement ring!

Check out some of my favorites from Sydney and Dyce’s engagement at Pretty Place and Bald Rock!

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South Carolina Mountain Engagement | Stephanie & John

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John and Stephanie live in Houston, but decided to make a fall trip to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. They’d never been to the Carolinas or Tennessee before. Stephanie remembered seeing Pretty Place Chapel on TikTok and decided that she wanted to see the sunrise there while she was in the area. She and John saw that it would be open for sunrise on the Monday that they would be there, and decided to go then.

John knew that this was where he wanted to propose to Stephanie. He showed a coworker some photos that had been tagged there on Instagram and they came across my photos of a couple who got engaged there a few weeks earlier. He went to my blog post about them, where I’d also linked all my info for visiting and having photos taken at Pretty Place. He sent me an email, we set up a time to talk, and we made the plan to go!

The windy road to Pretty Place from Greenville is one lane in each direction and goes up a mountain through the woods.  I always get nervous driving there for sunrise because so much of that drive is in the dark. But when I’m almost there, I’ll notice that the sky has turned from black to dark blue, and I’ll start to see reds and oranges coming through. It was cold when I got there, but I was relieved to see that there weren’t a lot of cars in the parking lot. I easily found a seat in the aisle that felt like the right distance from the cross. John had sent me a selfie they had taken that morning, so I knew who they were when I saw them.

Stephanie asked someone to take a photo of them in front of the cross on her phone. She went to take her phone back, but when she saw that John was on one knee, she gave her phone right back the person and went back to the cross. After Stephanie said yes and everyone cheered, John pointed me out to Stephanie, and both of them gave me a big hug.

After we took some photos around the chapel, we went down to Bald Rock and Wildcat Wayside, where there were almost no people. It was so quiet and peaceful! Bald Rock Heritage Preserve has a rock face that overlooks Table Rock Mountain. Even though there’s graffiti all over it, the view is still beautiful. We also took some photos at the stream by the parking lot, where a lot of red leaves were floating. After we finished taking photos, Stephanie and John went back up to Pretty Place to soak it all in, then went out to eat in Brevard.

Enjoy Stephanie and John’s fall engagement photos in the mountains of South Carolina!

For more information on visiting or having photos taken at Pretty Place, this post is for you!

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South Carolina Mountain Engagement | Alexa & Matt

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Alexa and Matt made a weekend trip to Greenville to celebrate the anniversary of the day they started dating. Alexa likes Pretty Place, but when they made the trip up here last fall, they came all the way up to Pretty Place and saw that it was closed for an event. They ended up checking out Caesars Head and Bald Rock instead.

This fall, Matt told Alexa that there was a work event in Greenville, so maybe they could check out Pretty Place this time. They came to Pretty Place dressed so nicely, but when someone offered to take their picture, she was really frustrated with the lighting, since it’s so much shadier in the chapel than it is in the mountains. I popped in and suggested they stand to the side of the cross and behind it, where the it wasn’t shaded. Matt asked if I could take a photo on his phone, and I said yes. Little did Alexa know that Matt and I had talked before, and I was actually putting them in an optimal place for a photo of their proposal!

It was cloudy and on the verge of raining, which made for a moody-looking fall landscape at Pretty Place. After we took some photos with the mountains and woods there, we went down to Caesars Head, about 20 minutes back towards Greenville. Caesars Head faces west instead of east, making it a more optimal place for sunset, but the fog/clouds had almost completely covered everything. It started to rain a little, so I got my umbrellas out for Alexa and Matt to use. The good thing about the rain is that we only saw one other person the whole time we were at the park, so it was nice and intimate! I loved the way that their outfits contrasted, but still looked like Christmas colors, and they popped so beautifully against the cloudy sky!

Check out some of Alexa and Matt’s engagement photos in the mountains of South Carolina!

(For more information about visiting or having photos done at Pretty Place, this post is for you)

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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 Pretty Place | Barbara and Christian

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Barbara and Christian were taking a fall trip from Florida with their families through Pigeon Forge and Asheville. Barbara had seen photos online of Pretty Place and wanted to come see it for herself. Christian knew when he saw the photos that Barbara would love to get engaged there, so he and I coordinated a plan. We watched the visitation schedule closely to coordinate with their open hours and the dates Christian and Barbara’s families would be nearby. Eventually, we saw that it would be open for sunrise on a day when they could be in the area, and we planned for that.

For the whole week leading up to the proposal, right up until I got in the car, the forecast said there was a high chance of rain. Pretty Place Chapel is covered, but I still brought my umbrellas for the shots we took outside of the chapel. There was rain on the drive up, but it had totally stopped by the time we got to the chapel. I wasn’t sure if the chance of rain, or the fact that it was a weekday, would keep some people away, but when I saw parked cars along the road before I could see the chapel at all, I knew the answer. It looked like a whole church service! When I reached the chapel, the fog was so intense that it just looked like a white sheet behind the cross. Within just a few minutes, that fog turned into low clouds that hung around the mountains, just in time for a beautiful sunrise to come through! The sunrise and clouds over the mountains behind the cross literally looked like the pictures people share on Facebook and Instagram on Easter Sunday, except it wasn’t a picture. As people came and went through the chapel, I moved down the seats in the aisle until I reached an aisle seat on the second row.

Christian and Barbara stood in line down the aisle to have their photo taken while I took photos of the people before them to get the lighting right. When Christian’s mom took a photo of them on her phone, Christian got down on one knee. Barbara was so excited! So many people started cheering and taking their picture, and Christian pointed to me as the one to look at. I waved my arms and people started to back off. When we moved out of the chapel, Barbara said, “Oh, I forgot to say yes!”

We moved away from all the people in the chapel and off to the side. There is a tiny overlook over the mountains that had a small line forming, so while we waited in line, I took some photos of Christian and Barbara with the trees. The foliage was some of the best I’ve seen in South Carolina so far, and we went further into the woods to just get some photos with the trees.

What a way to start a fall morning! Check out some of my favorite photos of Barbara and Christian’s engagement at Pretty Place Chapel! For more information about visiting Pretty Place, check out this post!

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