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Virginia Elopement at Hawksbill Mountain
Brithany and Dhruvin had an incredible fall elopement at Hawksbill Mountain in Shenandoah National Park with just their immediate families. This is not to be confused with the Hawksbill Mountain near Asheville, North Carolina (although I’ve heard that one is beautiful too.) But is located in the central district of Shenandoah National Park.
For more information on eloping in Shenandoah National Park check out this resource.
I recommend starting at the Upper Hawksbill parking area. Although both upper and lower parking areas will get you to the same spot, the Upper Hawksbill path is not quite as steep as the lower one.
After about 3/4 of a mile hike, you’ll reach the summit. There you’ll find an Appalachian Trail shelter you can use to change in and a manmade viewing platform perfect for a ceremony. The platform is east facing and is absolutely lovely at sunrise.
After exchanging private vows in front of their family, they performed a Japanese Kintsugi ceremony. They idea behind the ceremony is embracing the flawed and imperfect. The couple takes a broken piece of pottery and glues it back together using gold paint so you can see where the cracks were. It’s really quite lovely and may be one of my favorite elopement ceremony rituals to date!
After the ceremony we all retreated back to the Hawksbill shelter for some Indian treats and chai that their mothers had made.
They enjoyed a lovely breakfast picnic with their families and then we took some portraits at the top of the mountain before hiking back down to the parking area.
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