Long Lake Elopement - Khara and Kyle

Khara and Kyle came in from Ohio to get married in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. They threw tradition to wind and designed a Long Lake elopement day for the two of them that included everything that was important to them.

After weighing a lot of options for locations in Colorado, they kept coming back to Long Lake as the perfect spot to say I do.

We met at the long lake parking lot on a slightly chilly fall day. Khara‘s Jean jacket was the perfect layer to add over her wedding dress, which she chose because it wasn’t too formal but had enough of a train to feel like a wedding dress. Kyle was dressed in a navy suit and tie. Khara made her own flowers.

We started our hike to Long Lake, which isn’t far from the trail head. We spent the first hour and a half wandering amongst the evergreen trees playing in patches of sunlight and enjoying the quiet solitude and intimacy of their day.

We wandered all around the lake taking in some of the mountain views, the brilliant blue Colorado skies, and soaring evergreen trees. They were patches of fall color in the low lying scrub bushes and grasses, which added a little bit of color to their session.

After about an hour and a half we made our way down to the shores of Long Lake where the sun was heading towards the mountain peaks in the distance. It was here that Khara and Kyle exchanged vows with each other. Each of them wrote a full page of singlespaced vows, and each of them cried their way through both readings. Kyle had written an elegant promise for the ring exchange, but because Khara didn’t have it written down she simply said “ditto” as she placed the ring on Kyle‘s finger.

They shared their first kiss which was a combination of tears and laughter. Then they toasted with Denver beer Company beer and pulled out their speakers to share a first dance.

We left Long Lake before the sun was completely gone and drove a little ways down the road until we found a spectacular grove of yellow and orange aspens. Up a 9500 feet the colors were spectacular and we played in the leaves until he lost the last of the sun.

Khara and Kyle had plans to finish out a few days of celebration in Colorado by themselves before it before heading back to Ohio. They’ll plan a family celebration at a flower farm in the spring, but Colorado was just for them.