Table Rock State Park
When you hear “Table Rock,” you might think of super hard hikes. Yes, some of the hardest hikes in the whole state of South Carolina are accessible from this park, but this park really has something for everyone. We’ve been to every state park in South Carolina and Table Rock is one of our favorites because it pretty much has everything—long hikes, short hikes, pretty views that don’t involve hikes, mountains, waterfalls, a lake, you name it! We even had our own family photos here because we love the scenery here so much.
Table Rock actually does have its own venue for larger weddings, the Gaines Lodge, but it’s also a great place for engagement photos and elopements!
First of all, there’s about a 5-minute drive between the park headquarters and the trailhead, so make sure you know where you’re navigating to because it’s hard to get signal in the park. The trailhead is on State Park Road and the park headquarters is on Ellison Lane. The trailhead has a small waterfall, and there’s another one just a short walk up from it.
The photo below was taken at Carrick Creek Falls, along the Carrick Creek Trail. This is a moderate 2-mile hike and took us about an hour with all the stops for photos. It goes a lot farther than what you see in the photo, but this is where it was safe for me to stand.
If you go to the park headquarters, you’ll see a beautiful view of the mountains over Lake Oolenoy, including the famous Table Rock, which is easily recognizable with its granite face. There’s enough grass in front of the park headquarters to make it look like a big field in front of Table Rock. There is a T-shaped pier on Lake Oolenoy, with one side overlooking the mountains and the other side overlooking more of the water.
In the fall, the visitor center has some beautiful tall grass down by the water. The walkway to the visitor center is lined with beauty berry bushes, which give almost neon purple and green colors.
Also, while you’re in the area, feel free to check out some other nearby state parks, like Caesars Head, Keowee-Toxaway, or Devils Fork! You can also read about our adventures through all 47 state parks in South Carolina! For more information about Table Rock State Park, read about it on the South Carolina State Parks website.
Check out some of my other photos below from around Table Rock State Park, read more about my engagement photo services, or click here to get started with planning your session!
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Table Rock Engagement | Hannah and Brandon
Brandon wanted to propose to Hannah while they were visiting family and friends in upstate South Carolina and western North Carolina. He came across my blog post on where to take engagement photos and decided that Table Rock State Park had the scenery he was looking for. It’s one of my favorite places in the upstate to take photos because you can get mountains, a lake, and some small waterfalls without hiking at all. He specifically mentioned wanting to propose at the pier on Lake Oolenoy with the mountains in the background—perfection!
Before driving down from Ohio, Brandon told Hannah that he wanted to have couple’s photos taken with a photographer who did his friend’s photos, and they shopped for outfits together. Since the family was in on the plan, Brandon made sure someone offered to do Hannah’s nails before the session.
Even though the rain snuck up on us in the forecast, it stopped raining at the park right when Brandon and Hannah arrived, and didn’t start back up again. We didn’t hardly see any other people, probably because the rain had kept them away. We met at the Table Rock trailhead and took some photos at the little waterfalls near the beginning of the trail. After that, we drove to the park headquarters, where we would get the view of the mountains over Lake Oolenoy. Brandon’s friend had set up a beautiful picnic on the pier while we were on the trail, then left the park. Of course Hannah said yes when Brandon proposed, and she couldn’t believe how beautiful the ring was.
After we took photos for a little longer, I went home, and Brandon and Hannah had some alone time in the last 30 minutes or so before the park closed. This was the best summer evening we could have possibly asked for!
Enjoy some of my photos of Hannah and Brandon’s engagement at Table Rock State Park!
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Maternity Photos at Lake Jocassee | Alexis and Skylar
Skylar and Alexis were my very first engagement session in 2017. 5 years later, they’re about to become parents, and I got to do their photos again!
Even though we knew each other in college, Dan and I have gotten closer with Alexis and Skylar in the time since their engagement session. Dan and Skylar play Dungeons and Dragons with two of their other friends every week. We’ve been on some hikes, and our dogs love playing together!
Alexis and Skylar trusted me when I told them a spot that was at the top of my bucket list for photos: Devils Fork State Park. This park is the only public access point to Lake Jocassee, which is the best combination of water and mountains you can find in South Carolina. This park gave us beach vibes, fall woodsy vibes, and mountains, all close together. The photo of Alexis and Skylar walking on the bridge to the dock is one of my new favorites!
Alexis is due in mid-November. As much as I wanted to have fall foliage in these photos, we had the session done on the first day of October. We didn’t want to do the session too close to Alexis’s due date for a few reasons. One is that sometimes babies arrive earlier than their due date and we didn’t want to miss the window. The other is that sometimes the last stretch of the pregnancy can be super uncomfortable, making it hard to move around, so we had the session around the 34 week mark.
We almost rescheduled the session because Hurricane Ian was coming through. A few days earlier, it said there was a 90% chance of rain that day. Luckily, the rain was done early that morning, and the sun came through just enough. We couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather that day, and I think the forecast scared a lot of people away from the park that day, so we almost had it to ourselves!
Usually at any point during the fall, I can find SOMETHING that has some fall color in it, and I’ll milk it for a photo session. One of the bushes I found happened to be next to a beauty berry bush, which has some interesting colors in the fall—lime green leaves with electric purple berries!
I hope that one day, Alexis and Skylar’s daughter will enjoy looking at photos of the weeks before she was born. In the meantime, check out some of my favorite photos from Alexis and Skylar’s maternity photos at Devils Fork State Park!
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Anniversary Photos at Table Rock | Semeen and Shehzad
I spent a perfect spring evening with Semeen and Shehzad right before their one-year wedding anniversary. We took photos at one of my favorite South Carolina parks, and one of my favorite places in South Carolina: Table Rock State Park in Pickens. I love that Table Rock Mountain is so easily recognizable from a distance, and I love that we can take photos with both water and mountains here.
Semeen and Shehzad had met before Shehzad came to the US for grad school, but they stayed in touch from across the world. Over the years, they became very close, and they knew that they wanted to get married and live in South Carolina together. When Shehzad came back to India, he proposed to Semeen. With Covid regulations in place in India, they opted for a small wedding just a week after their engagement so that they could be married before Shehzad came back to the US. As the Covid situation became more complicated, Shehzad ended up not being able to fly back to the US for four months! They made the best of the situation and spent that time adventuring together around India and Europe until they could move to South Carolina.
We originally had a different state park in mind for these photos, but when it was time to go, it appeared this park was already closed for the day. Shehzad suggested Table Rock instead. This is one of my favorite parks and I even had my own family photos there, so I agreed. They decided to have one outfit that was more American-looking and one that was more Indian-looking. Shehzad wore a kurta, which is like a long shirt, and Semeen wore a dupatta, which is like a shawl. I loved the sparkle and color the dupatta added to the photos!
When I first met Shehzad through the photography club at Clemson, he had only lived in the US for a few months. He said he loved taking pictures of the trees in the fall because he had never seen trees change colors before and he wanted to show everyone in India how beautiful it was. When we got to Table Rock, there was a tree with beautiful pink blossoms that I knew I wanted to use in their photos, but of course Shehzad pointed out an orange tree along the water too.
Enjoy Semeen and Shehzad‘s anniversary photos at Table Rock 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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South Carolina Waterfall Engagement Photos | Lauren and Christian
Station Cove Falls | Lauren and Christian
Lauren and I connected through a local hiking group, where she saw pictures I took of a couple at Carrick Creek Falls. She said that she and her husband didn’t have photos taken on their wedding day and would love to have some done together. I asked her if she had anywhere in mind, and she told me the place that was at the top of my bucket list: Station Cove Falls!
Lauren and Christian were married in front of the waterfall six months ago, with a few of their family members as witnesses. In the middle of an October with otherwise perfect fall weather, it poured the whole day. A lot of the trail had flooded, and they had to choose a different rock to stand on for the ceremony itself.
A few days after their wedding, I took the trail for the first time and it went on my bucket list for places to take pictures. There are a few reasons why this stands out to me from other trails:
You can safely take a lot of different pictures with the main attraction.
It’s an easy trail, so it’s less likely that the couple would be sweaty or exhausted in their photos—or worse, you have to turn around before you get to the good part.
It’s a short trail, so we could plan to be at the falls when the lighting is optimal and still be off the trail by dark.
It’s not too crowded, especially on weekdays.
There’s enough of a variety of pictures we could take here—it’s not just three hours of hiking with one spot that’s pretty.
Eventually, we decided to move their session from the evening to the morning because there was a high chance of thunderstorms in the evening. It was so quiet, aside from some running water and birds singing. A dog ran up to us at the waterfall, shook water all over us, and dropped a giant piece of wood at our feet and waited for us to throw it.
One thing I love about sessions with waterfalls is how loud the water is once we’re right up in front of it. We end up shouting to each other and making gestures, and it always makes us all laugh. We found the spot where Lauren and Christian stood where they said their vows, but we also made sure to get pictures at the spot they wanted to say their vows before they knew how much water would cover it.
Enjoy the photos from Lauren and Christian’s session!
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Lake Keowee Proposal | Connor and Jess
Dan and I had hiked the Raven Rock Trail at Keowee Toxaway State Park back in February. We were looking for a lesser known trail with a pretty view. When we got to the overlook, I immediately asked why more people don’t post pictures from there. Well, you can imagine how happy I was when Connor told me that’s where he planned to propose to Jess!
Jess and Connor had been friends since high school, eventually becoming a couple. They share a love for the outdoors and have hiked some really cool places together. Eventually, Jess gave Connor a ring she had fallen in love with years before, holding onto it until she knew she found the person she wanted to be with for the rest of her life. When Connor and Jess were spending the week at Lake Keowee, Connor suggested hiking the Raven Rock Trail, a place he loved to visit growing up.
As Connor and Jess made their way through the trail, there were bags hanging from the trees. Each bag had a gold bow, a rose, and a scrapbook page with pictures of them together. Once they reached the overlook, there was a picnic set up with wine, cheese, and pepper jelly. There was a scrapbook on the picnic blanket for all the pages to go into. Around the wine bottle was a necklace chain with the stone from the ring Jess had given Connor. After Connor put it around Jess’s neck, he proposed to her with the ring with a new stone in it. She says she was so overwhelmed that she couldn’t even remember whether she said yes, so Connor popped the question again a minute later so she could answer. Not only was this a beautiful view of the lake at golden hour, there was literally nobody else on the trail the entire time, making this such an intimate proposal. Their first “congratulations” came from a boat horn down below!
Shoutout to Connor’s brother and brother’s fiancée for setting up everything beforehand and for hiking the first half of the trail with me!
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Table Rock Engagement Photos | Jillian and Vincenzo
Vincenzo left Italy to come work at his uncle’s restaurant in Greenville. That’s where he first met Jillian! After they’d been dating a while, they visited Pretty Place Chapel, where Vincenzo proposed. Even though he was so nervous that he opened the ring box upside down, Jillian said yes!
Jillian saw my photos in a South Carolina hiking group on Facebook and reached out to me about her engagement photos. I saw she was also a Clemson alumna, so that’s always exciting! She told me she wanted her engagement photos to be in the mountains. I was so excited that someone around here was as excited about pictures in the mountains as I am! We discussed possible places, but we had to hold off on choosing a location and setting a date since a lot of places were closed with the stay-at-home order. We talked about going to the Blue Ridge Parkway, but it would be hard to know what was open until we got there. When the state parks opened back up, we decided to go to Table Rock on a Thursday to avoid the park reaching capacity.
I think there were more geese than people on the day we had our session! We also found some ducks, a large snake, and the biggest snail I’ve ever seen. Even though we couldn’t do the session in the spring, we still got cool weather for June! The three of us took a trail where we found a few pretty waterfalls. We had so much fun talking about Italy, South Carolina, the mountains, and their wedding plans! As the sun started to go down, we went towards the lodge, where there was a beautiful view of Table Rock right next to Pinnacle Lake. The water even glowed orange from the colors in the sky!
Check out my photos of this awesome couple in one of my favorite places in the whole state!
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