Kayla & Gus' Two Day Adventure Elopement in the Berkshires + Catskills

It seems almost an impossible task to neatly summarize our experience working with Kayla and Gus this past week for their elopement. Kayla and Gus live out on the west coast although they’re from the east coast, and Kayla is actually an incredibly talented elopement/wedding photographer herself. When they reached out to us in August of 2022 to tell us they’d been planning to hire us before they even got engaged we were flattered, to say the least, and what followed over the next eight or nine months was a lot of idea exchanging and plenty of anxious excitement as we got closer and closer to the date and final plan. Kayla and Gus put together an early morning hike to a beautiful overlook in Ashfield, MA which would serve as the site for their elopement. In their words, the spot “bridged their past and present and future,” in that it offered breathtaking views not unlike what they’re used to out in Oregon while being a totally new experience together within New England.

Something we picked up pretty early on from them was how heavily nostalgia influenced their relationship, and between the hike the first day, the creek walk the second day (the site of their first date while going to school in Oneonta, NY!) and the dinner with family at Origins Cafe we felt that incredibly deeply. Each and every part of their two-day adventure paid homage to someone, some place, something that had made an impression on them, left a mark, or imprinted a feeling too intense to forget. Being able to settle into that plan and document a very beautiful love story between two folks just trying to figure out how to exist in this crazy world was humbling and maybe just a touch intimidating, considering how big a fan we are of Kayla’s work. It felt genuinely tough to pack up at the end of the two-day extravaganza in part because of the time we’d shared with these two over the past couple of days, but also because New York state was where we met and fell in love and it will always hold a special place in our hearts. The setting sun in the rear view mirror as we drove home was so intense we had to pull the car over to watch it for a while, and it felt like the exclamation point on what was already a wild adventure.

Venues: Chapel Ledge in Ashfield, MA / Wilber Park in Oneonta, NY / Origins Cafe in Cooperstown, NY
Dress: Leanne Marshall
Bridal Shop: Brides for a Cause
Florals: Forest Flowers
Invites: Custom by friend of bride
Cake: Origins Cafe