F.A.Q.

Questions,

Answered.

Planning Meaningful Celebrations in Wild Places

Proposals + Couple Experiences

Yes. And honestly, you do not need to arrive with much more than “I’m pretty sure I want to ask this person to marry me.” We can work from there.
Tell us about the two of you. What you love doing together, whether your person would want something completely private or secretly hopes for a little celebration afterward, whether they love mountains or the beach or somewhere that already means something to you. We can help you sort through locations, timing, light, logistics and how to make the whole thing feel like something you would actually do together - not a proposal you borrowed from Pinterest because it photographed well.
Very carefully... and with a mildly ridiculous amount of planning behind the scenes.
Before the proposal, we'll figure out exactly where you need to be, where DeShawna will be, what direction you should face, how we'll recognize each other, and what happens if your person suddenly decides they absolutely MUST stop somewhere you did not plan for. Because people are people, and surprise proposals apparently make everyone discover free will at the worst possible moment.
The goal is for your partner to have no idea their proposal is being photographed until after the question has been asked. Once you get your yes, DeShawna can come out of hiding and we can move into photographing the two of you without you having to immediately leave this huge moment and go, “Okay... now what?”
Absolutely. The location should make sense for Absolutely. The location should make sense for your person, not just for the photographs.
Some people would love being proposed to at a dramatic overlook with miles of scenery behind them. Someone else would be much happier beside a quiet river where there isn't another human within earshot. We'll talk about privacy, accessibility, crowds, timing, travel and what the two of you actually enjoy, then narrow it down from there.
And if you already have a place that matters to you, even better. Sometimes the best proposal location isn't the most impressive one on Instagram. It's the place that already has a story attached to it.person, not just for my camera.
Some people would love being proposed to at a dramatic overlook with miles of scenery behind them. Someone else would be much happier beside a quiet river where there isn’t another human within earshot. We’ll talk about privacy, accessibility, crowds, timing, travel and what the two of you actually enjoy, then narrow it down from there.
And if you already have a place that matters to you, even better. Sometimes the best proposal location isn’t the most impressive one on Instagram. It’s the place that already has a story attached to it.
Yes. We don't expect you to figure out every tiny detail alone and then simply send us a pin.
We can talk through how you'll get your partner there without making them suspicious, where you should stand, what time gives us the best combination of light and privacy, and whether you want anything waiting for you when you arrive. If there are flowers, champagne, a picnic, letters, family hiding nearby or some other piece you've dreamed up, we'll figure out how it fits without turning the proposal into a production where you're more worried about hitting your mark than asking the actual question.
We want you prepared enough that once you're there, you can forget the plan for a minute and just be in it.
Not unless that sounds like your person.
A proposal can be an entire setup with flowers and champagne waiting at the end of a trail. It can also be the two of you standing somewhere beautiful with absolutely nothing between you except a ring and a very nervous person trying to remember the speech they practiced approximately 47 times.
Neither one is more romantic.
If you want a setup, we can talk about ways to make it feel thoughtful without competing with the place you chose. If you don’t, you are not missing anything. Sometimes the landscape and the moment are plenty.
First... you get a second. A real one.
You hug. You laugh. Somebody usually says some version of “OH MY GOD” at least six times. You stare at the ring. You call your mom. You completely forget there is another human standing nearby holding a camera. All normal.
Once everything settles a little, we’ll spend some time photographing the two of you together. That means you leave with the actual proposal and photographs from those first ridiculous, happy minutes when you’ve just realized you’re engaged.
Welcome to proposing to someone who knows you extremely well. 😂
It happens. You suddenly suggest watching the sunset even though you normally consider leaving the house after 6 p.m. a personal attack. You insist they wear something nice for reasons that make absolutely no sense. You become weirdly interested in arriving somewhere at an exact time.
We’ll do our best to make the plan fit naturally into something the two of you would already do. And if they suspect something? That doesn’t ruin the moment. Knowing a proposal might be coming and actually seeing the person you love standing in front of you with a ring are two very different things.
Of course. They can be standing there with you, hiding nearby, waiting somewhere afterward, or completely unaware until you call them ten minutes later screaming.
If you want people involved, we’ll think about when they join the story. Sometimes having everyone there for the proposal is exactly right. Other times, giving the two of you a few private minutes first and having everyone appear afterward feels much better.
There isn’t one correct version. There’s just the version that feels most like the two of you.
Both.
Some couples have DeShawna there for the proposal and then continue into an engagement experience afterward. Others are already engaged and want photographs that feel more like a date together than an hour of standing in poses because somebody told you engagement photos are something you're supposed to do.
We can explore somewhere, grab a drink, walk a trail, drive somewhere beautiful, bring the dog, revisit somewhere important to you... whatever gives you something to actually do together while DeShawna photographs it.
Please don’t stop taking photographs together just because the wedding happened.
Anniversaries, honeymoons, trips, birthdays, ten years together, twenty years together, or a random Tuesday when you realize you haven’t had a good photograph of the two of you since your wedding - all valid reasons.
Some of our favorite photographs are the ones that don't have a milestone attached to them at all. They're simply a record of who you were together right then, in that little chapter of your life.
No. We use the word adventure pretty loosely around here.
It doesn’t automatically mean hiking boots, a mountain and a sunrise alarm that makes you question every decision you’ve ever made. An adventure can be a beautiful drive, wandering through a little town, stopping beside the water, finding somewhere for dinner afterward, or spending an evening somewhere you’ve never been.
The whole idea is really just to give you something more interesting to remember than, “We met our photographer in a field at 5:30 and smiled for an hour.”

INTIMATE WEDDINGS + ELOPEMENTS

To be honest, the line between the two can get a little blurry - and we don’t think you need to worry too much about the label. An elopement is usually centered almost entirely around the two of you, while an intimate wedding may include a small group of family or friends and a few more traditional wedding pieces. But both can have flowers, cake, beautiful clothes, a first look, dinner, family, champagne, hiking boots... whatever you want.
The better question is probably, what do you want your wedding day to feel like? If the answer is peaceful, personal, connected, and not spent trying to say hello to 150 people before the night is over, we’re already headed in the right direction.
Absolutely. Eloping does not mean you have to secretly disappear into the woods, get married, and text your mother afterward from the parking lot. You can bring your parents, your kids, your closest friends, or a few people who simply need to be there.
Where we’ll get thoughtful is with the location. Ten people gathered beside a river can feel wonderfully intimate. Twenty-five people on a narrow overlook suddenly becomes a very different logistical situation. We’ll look at what matters most to you and find the balance between having your people there and still having the kind of day you wanted in the first place.
Then we build the day that way. You do not have to choose between having the people you love there and actually getting time alone with the person you’re marrying.
Your family might join you for the ceremony and dinner, while the two of you disappear afterward for sunset. Maybe you share private vows before everyone arrives. Maybe everyone celebrates with you the night before and the wedding morning belongs completely to you. There are a hundred ways to include people without handing them every minute of the day.
This one is hard, and honestly, it comes up a lot. Sometimes the people who love you have spent years imagining what your wedding would look like too, and when your plans suddenly don’t match that picture, feelings can get complicated very quickly.
There may be ways to include them that still protect what you want - inviting them to one part of the day, having dinner together afterward, reading letters from them during your ceremony, or celebrating when you get home. But we also don't think your wedding should slowly turn into something you never wanted because you were trying to make everyone else okay with it. You're allowed to care about their feelings and still choose a wedding that feels right for the two of you.
Nope. Keep the things you love and leave the rest behind.
If you’ve always pictured wearing the dress, wear it. Carry flowers. Have your dad walk with you. Exchange rings. Cut a cake. Have a first dance somewhere completely ridiculous with nobody watching except us and possibly a confused squirrel. None of those things belong exclusively to big weddings.
The nice part about eloping is that tradition becomes something you get to choose, instead of a checklist of things you’re apparently required to do because everyone before you did them.
YES. And this may be one of our favorite things to explain because an elopement does not have to mean a fifteen-minute ceremony followed by an hour of pictures.
You can wake up somewhere beautiful, have coffee together, get ready slowly, exchange letters, drive somewhere you’ve never been, say your vows beside the water, stop halfway through the afternoon because you found an incredible little place to eat, watch the sunset, have cake later... whatever makes sense for you. Without a ballroom timeline constantly pulling you toward the next announcement, there is suddenly room to actually spend your wedding day with each other.
Smaller doesn’t automatically mean less. Sometimes it means you finally have time for more.
Obviously DeShawna is going to photograph you - that's a pretty important part of why she's there - and there will be times when she'll guide you into better light, move you a few feet, give you something to do, or help when suddenly neither of you remembers what humans normally do with their hands. But we don't want you performing for a camera all day.
We want there to be parts of the day when you forget you're being photographed because you're busy doing something together. Years from now, we'd much rather you look at an image and remember what was happening than remember DeShawna yelling, “Okay, now look at each other!” from behind a bush.
Good. Tell us anyway.
Maybe you want sunrise vows and pancakes afterward. Maybe your kids are coming. Maybe hiking sounds miserable and you’d rather take a scenic drive, stop somewhere beautiful and walk the last little bit. Maybe you want to get married beside a river and then find the best tiny restaurant in town. Maybe you’ve had an idea floating around in your head for months but keep thinking, are people actually allowed to do this for a wedding?
This is exactly the kind of thing we want you to bring us. We can figure out what's possible, what needs a little adjusting, and what might be even better than the version you originally pictured.
That is completely okay. You don’t need to show up with a date, a trail map, a Pinterest board, and a twelve-step plan.
Sometimes the starting point is literally, “We know we don’t want a traditional wedding.” From there, we can talk about what you do want - who you want there, how you want the day to feel, whether you picture mountains or water or somewhere close to home, and what would make the two of you excited instead of overwhelmed.
You don’t need to know how to plan an elopement before you reach out. That would sort of defeat the purpose of having someone help you plan it.

Planning + Travel

Yes. We can actually help you plan and book your travel. That may include hotels, flights, lodging, room blocks, transportation, activities, restaurants, honeymoon plans, romantic getaways and the other pieces surrounding your trip. Sometimes you may only need us to point you toward the right place to stay. Other times you may hand us the whole puzzle and say, “Please figure this out.” Both are completely fine.
Some travel planning may be available without a separate planning fee when River Branch is compensated through the travel booking itself. More extensive trips, custom itinerary work, multiple reservations, guest arrangements, vendor coordination or higher-touch support may require upgraded concierge planning. We'll make that clear before we start so there aren't surprise planning fees halfway through your trip.
No. Photography and travel work beautifully together, but you don't have to book a photography experience to ask River Branch for help planning a trip.
You might be planning a honeymoon after a completely traditional wedding, an anniversary trip, a romantic weekend away, or finally taking the vacation the two of you have been talking about for three years. We can help with those too. Long term, we want River Branch to be somewhere couples can come back to for more than one chapter of their lives... not disappear from each other's lives the second we've delivered a gallery.
Quite a bit of guidance is already built into the Signature Experience because we don't think you should choose a ceremony location in one vacuum and then figure out the rest of your trip in another. Your experience currently includes location recommendations, timeline design, permit and access research, weather and backup planning, vendor recommendations, and lodging, honeymoon and travel guidance.
So no, we're not going to send you an invoice because you asked which area makes the most sense for your hotel. If your needs grow into full honeymoon planning, flights, room blocks, significant vendor outreach, extensive reservations, a detailed multi-day itinerary or on-trip concierge support, that's when we may talk about expanding your planning package.
Absolutely. Your honeymoon doesn't have to be treated like an entirely separate project that Future You gets stuck figuring out after you've survived everything else. We can look at where you want to go, how much time you have, what you actually enjoy doing together, where to stay, how to get there, and what you want the trip to feel like.
And it doesn't necessarily have to happen where you elope. You could have your ceremony in Florida and continue into the mountains for your honeymoon, or photograph your experience with River Branch and travel somewhere completely different afterward. The point is not to force everything into one destination. It's to make the pieces make sense together.
Yes. If you're bringing a small group with you, we can help research and coordinate lodging areas, hotels, room blocks, flights, transportation options and the general flow of getting everyone where they need to be.
This is especially helpful for destination-style intimate weddings because your guests aren't only attending a ceremony. They're traveling. Suddenly somebody needs to know which airport makes sense, whether they need a rental car, where everyone should stay and whether the restaurant you've fallen in love with is forty-five minutes in the opposite direction. Those little logistical decisions can completely change how easy the weekend feels.
Yes, and this is one of the places where a small wedding can become really fun. Instead of filling a traditional reception timeline simply because that's what weddings are “supposed” to have, we can think about what your people would actually enjoy doing with you.
That could mean dinner after the ceremony, brunch the next morning, a boat ride, kayaking, a park day, a tour, a group activity, or simply finding a really good place where everybody can eat and hang out together. We can research options, help with reservations and think through how everything fits into the larger itinerary.
Yes, particularly the vendors that make sense for an elopement, proposal or small ceremony. Depending on what you need, we can help with recommendations for officiants, florists, hair and makeup, private chefs, restaurants and other experience-specific vendors. With expanded planning, we can also help with outreach and coordination rather than simply handing you a list of names.
There is a boundary here, though. River Branch isn't currently designed to manage ballroom receptions, seating charts, large rental orders, catering operations or all the moving parts of a traditional large wedding. If that's what you're planning, DeShawna’s sister brand, DeShawna & Co., is the better place for us to start. Here she can help find you the right planner for your event. River Branch is built around the ceremony, the place, the people you actually want there, the trip surrounding it and the time the two of you get to spend together.
Yes. If we're planning your experience or trip, we can research restaurants, activities and other reservations that make sense for what you're doing and help arrange them.
And we don't want to recommend something simply because it appears on a “Top 10 Things to Do” list. We want to look at the actual trip. If you have a sunrise ceremony, maybe scheduling an activity until 10 PM the night before is a terrible idea. If your parents are traveling with you, perhaps the gorgeous restaurant with 47 stairs isn't our restaurant. The itinerary needs to work for the humans actually living it.
You do. We can research options, help make arrangements and coordinate pieces of the experience, but River Branch does not front third-party costs on your behalf.
Permit fees, park or location fees, parking, lodging, airfare, transportation, restaurant deposits, activity tickets, private facility fees, vendor retainers and other third-party costs are paid by you before the applicable reservation, application or arrangement is finalized. It keeps the financial side clean and, more importantly, means we're never gambling your plans on River Branch floating somebody else's deposit.

Somewhere between choosing a location and actually getting there, one plan has a funny way of becoming seventeen. Where should we stay? Do we need a permit? Where are eight people eating afterward? What can everyone do the next morning... and wait, are we supposed to plan the honeymoon too?

River Branch can help connect those pieces. From location and travel guidance to hotels, flights, room blocks, reservations, activities, small-ceremony vendors, honeymoon planning and more hands-on concierge support, how involved we are depends on how much help you actually want. Start with the questions below, and if you're looking for the bigger picture, you can explore our Planning + Travel pages.

This is for the couple who would really, really like someone else to keep track of the moving pieces. Maybe there are flights, room blocks, several vendors, a honeymoon, activities and restaurant reservations all happening around the same trip. Or maybe you simply don't want another browser with 36 tabs open while trying to determine whether Hotel A is actually close to anything.
River Branch's expanded Concierge Planning + Travel Support is designed for more involved needs such as vendor outreach, room blocks, flights, full honeymoon or travel planning and on-trip support. Because every trip can require a wildly different amount of work, we'll look at what you actually need before deciding whether that level of support makes sense.
Higher-touch on-trip support can be included with expanded Concierge Planning + Travel Support. If we're handling a more complicated trip, we'll talk through what kind of support you may need while you're actually traveling and make sure the boundaries of that support are clear before you leave.
That distinction matters because making one hotel reservation and managing a multi-day trip while you're actively traveling are two very different jobs. If you want River Branch keeping an eye on the moving pieces while you're away, we'll build the appropriate level of support into your plan from the beginning.
Yes. And you don't need an elopement as an excuse.
Tell us you have four days, you want mountains, neither of you wants to cook, you want one ridiculous dinner you'll talk about for years, and you'd like something adventurous to do without spending six hours climbing a mountain... now we have something to work with. We can help shape the destination, lodging, travel, activities, reservations and overall flow into an actual trip rather than handing you another giant list of things you have to research yourself.
Not through River Branch. We can absolutely help with the pieces surrounding a small ceremony or intimate celebration, including vendors, dinner reservations, guest activities, travel, lodging and itinerary flow. What we're not trying to build here is full-scale reception production with seating charts, rental management, catering logistics and a ballroom full of moving pieces.
River Branch is designed for couples who want the ceremony, the place, the portraits, the travel and the time together to be the center of the story. If you're planning a larger traditional wedding, we'll point you toward DeShawna & Co. instead for photography and she can give you great recommendations for wedding planners we have already worked with!

NEED MORE INFO?

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Locations, Permits + Weather

You absolutely do not need to know exactly where you want to go before you reach out. Honestly, “somewhere with mountains, but I don't want to hike six miles in a wedding dress” is useful information. So is “Florida, but please not a beach,” or “we want somewhere our parents can actually get to.”

Part of what River Branch does is help turn that wishlist into an actual place and then figure out the less romantic details that come with it. Access, permits, parking, weather, travel time, accessibility, crowds, where you're staying, how your guests are getting there... none of those things are particularly exciting on their own, but they can make a HUGE difference in how the day actually feels.

No. You can come to us with a specific location already picked out, a general area you're considering, or absolutely nothing beyond what you want the experience to feel like.
If we're starting from scratch, we'll want to know what you're drawn to, how far you're comfortable traveling, how much walking or hiking sounds enjoyable (and what absolutely does not), whether guests are joining you, accessibility needs, the time of year and what you'd actually like to do while you're there. From there, we can help narrow the possibilities into locations that make sense for you, not just places that photograph well.
We look at more than the view. A gorgeous location isn't particularly useful if the road closes during your wedding month, your parents can't reach it, professional photography requires permission we can't get, or the only way there involves changing into wedding clothes behind a tree. Pretty matters. So does reality.
Depending on your experience, we can research things like access, walking or trail difficulty, parking, permits, photography restrictions, seasonal conditions, crowds, sunrise and sunset, nearby lodging, travel time, guest logistics and backup possibilities. For Signature Experiences, curated location recommendations and a backup location are already part of the planning support.
Absolutely not. We love a beautiful trail, but suffering is not an admission requirement for having an adventure.
Some couples genuinely want the hike, and we'll plan around that. Others want mountains, springs, forests, overlooks or wild-feeling scenery without carrying wedding clothes for three miles and getting married approximately twelve seconds after they stop sweating. River Branch is especially interested in finding accessible scenic locations and lower-effort ways of reaching beautiful places because the experience should fit the people having it.
Yes. And please tell me what accessibility means for your particular group, because it isn't the same for everyone.
Maybe someone uses a mobility aid. Maybe a parent can walk but can't manage steep terrain. Maybe you're perfectly capable of hiking five miles and simply have zero desire to do it on your wedding day. We can consider walking distance, terrain, parking, restrooms, vehicle access where permitted, seating possibilities and how much physical effort the location actually requires. I would much rather know those things while we're choosing the place than discover them together in wedding clothes.
Sometimes. There isn't one universal answer because requirements can change by state, park, land manager, activity, group size and what we're actually doing there. A simple portrait session may be treated differently from a ceremony with guests, decor or vendors.
River Branch can help research the current requirements for the location we're considering and, where allowed, help with the application or coordination process. We won't assume that being able to visit somewhere means we're automatically allowed to hold a ceremony or conduct professional photography there.
When the permitting authority allows someone other than the couple to handle the process, I can help research, prepare and sometimes coordinate or submit what is needed. Some permits or reservations may still need to be completed directly by you, and I'll tell you when that's the case.
Permit approval is ultimately controlled by the park, property owner or land-management agency, so I can't guarantee that a particular request will be approved. This is also why I like having another good option in our pocket rather than emotionally attaching ourselves to Plan A and then discovering Plan A has opinions.
Permit fees, parking, park passes, private-property charges, reservation fees, access fees and other third-party location costs are paid by you. River Branch can help research and coordinate those pieces, but I won't pay outside fees and then add them to your bill later.
If payment is required before an application, reservation or access arrangement can be submitted, we'll take care of that piece with you first and then move forward.
Not necessarily. Public land is still managed land, and different parks can have completely different rules about ceremonies, professional photography, group sizes, decor, parking, drones, pets, vehicles and which areas visitors are allowed to use.
This is one reason I don't want to build River Branch around giant generic lists of “50 places you can elope.” A location being beautiful on Instagram doesn't tell us whether it actually works for what you're planning. I'd rather research the specific place, current rules and actual experience before telling you it's a good fit.
We make another plan. Weather is part of working outdoors, especially throughout Florida and the Southeast, and sometimes the smartest choice is changing the time, adjusting the location, using the backup we already researched or changing part of the experience.
For Signature Experiences, weather backup planning and a backup location are already included. I don't want the first time we discuss rain, road conditions or unexpected closures to be while you're standing there dressed and ready to get married.
Yes. This is part of where River Branch is headed, and we’re ridiculously excited about it.
We're developing 4x4-supported access for select legal, approved and appropriate locations throughout Florida and the Lower Southeast. The goal isn't extreme off-roading. It's being able to reach certain scenic or remote-feeling places with less physical strain and more comfort, particularly when the alternative is hiking miles in wedding clothes, carrying everything on your backs or arriving at your ceremony already exhausted.
This is a future River Branch offering and will only be available where vehicle access is legal, approved, appropriately insured and permitted, and where the weather, route and conditions make sense. If the road says no, we also say no. The wedding day is not when anybody needs to discover exactly how effective the winch is.
Yes. Where you stay can affect the entire experience more than people realize. A hotel may technically be “near” your ceremony while still putting you on the wrong side of a mountain, an hour from your sunrise location, or nowhere near where your guests are staying.
I can help look at lodging areas, hotels, travel time and the overall flow between where you're sleeping and what we're planning. If you want me to go beyond guidance and actually handle hotels, room blocks, flights, reservations, activities or a larger itinerary, that's where River Branch's travel-planning services can take over.
Florida is home, but River Branch focuses on the Lower Southeast: Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina and North Carolina. That gives us everything from springs, beaches and old Florida landscapes to waterfalls, forests, mountain roads and overlooks without pretending we need to cover every pretty place in the entire country.
As the River Branch Field Guide library grows, each state will have its own deeper resources for things like marriage-license basics, permits, public lands, seasons, accessibility, travel considerations and location planning. The FAQ can tell you where to start. The Field Guides will be where we get wonderfully nerdy about it.

Photography

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It means we're photographing more than what everything looked like. We're paying attention to what was happening.
Of course we want the giant landscape photograph with the two of you standing somewhere ridiculous. We want the photographs you'll print and put on your walls. But we also want your hand reaching for theirs while you're walking, the look you exchange when somebody says something completely unhinged, your windblown hair, muddy shoes, the food you ordered afterward and the quiet five minutes when neither of you was paying attention to the camera. Some photographs show you where you were.
The ones we care about most remind you what it felt like to be there.
God, no.
I will absolutely guide you when you need it because being told to “just act natural” while someone points a camera at you is possibly the least natural situation ever invented. I'll help with where to stand, what to do with your hands, movement, light and the little adjustments that make a photograph work. But once you're comfortable, I want to give you room to actually be together. I don't need to manufacture seventeen romantic moments when I can pay attention and photograph the ones you're already giving me.
You probably think you are. Almost everybody tells us some version of this before DeShawna photographs them.
You don't need to practice poses, know your angles or suddenly become comfortable having a camera pointed at you. That's DeShawna's problem, not yours. You'll get enough direction that you're never standing there thinking, Okay... what are we supposed to be doing?, without being directed so heavily that the photographs stop looking like the two of you. You don't need to become good at being photographed. We are good at photographing you.
Absolutely. Story-driven does not mean I suddenly refuse to take the photograph your mother wants for her wall.
We'll make the beautiful portraits. If you're getting married, we'll photograph the people who matter to you and make sure the photographs that need to exist actually exist. I just don't want those photographs consuming the entire experience. We'll get what matters, and then everybody gets to go back to actually having a day.
Very much so. A huge part of what I'm doing is watching what happens between the photographs you know I'm taking.
Sometimes that's a huge emotional moment. Sometimes it's somebody trying not to cry. Sometimes it's your partner fixing something on your clothes without thinking about it, your dad watching you when you're looking somewhere else, or both of you absolutely losing it over something that will make no sense to anyone outside the photograph. Those are often the images that become more important with time because nobody stopped what was happening to create them.
I edit your photographs to finish them, not to turn you into different people or make the landscape look like somewhere we weren't.
I'll work with light, color, contrast, cropping and the normal finishing work that gives the gallery its finished River Branch feel. I want skin to look like skin, the landscape to still feel like the place we chose and the photographs to age well. If we went through all that trouble to choose somewhere beautiful, I'm certainly not going to make Florida look like Mars afterward.
You'll receive a fully edited gallery that tells the story of your experience, rather than every single frame the cameras happened to make. We remove duplicates, test frames, missed focus, blinks and the occasional photograph taken during that deeply unfortunate half-second between normal human facial expressions.
Your River Branch experience includes a fully edited gallery with personal printing rights. Signature Experiences also currently include a $300 keepsake credit with our chosen lab. We don't promise an arbitrary number of photographs because we'd rather deliver everything the story needs than photograph toward a quota.
You won't have to wait for the entire gallery before seeing something from your day. Signature Experiences include a small collection of sneak peeks after your experience, followed by your complete edited gallery within four weeks.
We'd rather give ourselves enough time to finish the photographs properly than race through a gallery just to make the turnaround sound impressive. If anything about your specific experience changes that timeline, you'll know before we ever get to the part where you're refreshing your inbox and wondering where we disappeared to.
Yes. Your finished gallery includes personal printing rights, so you aren't required to come back to me every time you want a print for your house or a copy for your mom.
Signature Experiences also currently include a $300 keepsake credit that can be used toward albums, prints, wall art or other tangible pieces from the experience. I love digital galleries, but I also don't want the only photograph from this whole ridiculous, wonderful thing hanging in your house to be whichever one eventually became your phone wallpaper.
Yes, I photograph traditional weddings. River Branch just isn't the brand I've built for them.
River Branch is intentionally centered around elopements, intimate weddings, proposals, couples and experiences where the people, place and time together get to carry the story. If you're planning a larger or more traditional wedding with a full reception, larger guest count and all the moving pieces that come with it, I'll point you toward DeShawna & Co. Same me behind the camera. Different kind of experience.
Yes. Florida is home, and River Branch is primarily focused throughout the Lower Southeast - Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina and North Carolina.
The current pricing structure also allows for destinations beyond the Southeast, so if you've fallen completely in love with somewhere farther away, you can still ask. I'm just deliberately building deep knowledge of the Southeast instead of pretending I've personally mastered every beautiful place in America because I've seen a Reel about it.

Adventure doesn't have to mean climbing a mountain before sunrise or owning an impressive collection of outdoor gear. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it means kayaking through a spring, taking a winding mountain road until we find the view we came for, getting on a boat, wandering somewhere you've never been, or spending an entire afternoon exploring with no requirement that anybody earn the scenery by hiking six miles first.

Around here, adventure is much more about doing something together than proving how adventurous you are. I want to know what sounds exciting to you, what absolutely does not, how much physical effort you're comfortable with and what would make you go home saying, “Okay... that was a REALLY good day.” Then we build from there.

Adventure

We care deeply about the photographs. We also don't want you thinking about photographs every five minutes while we're making them. You shouldn't have to spend your wedding day, proposal, anniversary or afternoon somewhere beautiful wondering where your hands go or whether you're standing in the right place.

DeShawna will step in and guide you when you need it, pay attention to the light and all the little things happening around you, and then back off when something real is unfolding. There will be beautiful portraits because, yes, we absolutely want those. But we also want the photographs you didn't know were being taken... the ones that remind you what was actually happening while you were busy living it.

Honestly? A lot more than people think.
An adventure can be hiking to an overlook, kayaking, horseback riding, swimming in a spring or exploring somewhere fairly remote. It can also be driving a ridiculous mountain road with the windows down, stopping at overlooks along the way, taking a boat somewhere, wandering through old Florida, finding an incredible place for dinner or exploring a place neither of you has ever seen before. There is no physical-fitness requirement hiding in the River Branch fine print. If it gets you out of normal life, gives you something to experience together and leaves you with a story afterward, it counts.
No. You don't need hiking boots, camping equipment or enough outdoor gear to qualify for your own REI sponsorship.
Tell me what you actually enjoy. If your perfect day includes a three-mile hike and getting your feet wet, excellent. If you want the mountain views but would strongly prefer to reach most of them by car, also excellent. Maybe you want to kayak but hate hiking. Maybe you want to spend an hour exploring and then find the best dinner within fifty miles. I'm much more interested in figuring out your version of adventure than convincing you to participate in somebody else's.
Absolutely not. And honestly, this is one of the things we want River Branch to be particularly good at.
There are couples who genuinely love hiking and want the hike itself to be part of their wedding day. But there are also couples who want the mountains, forests, waterfalls, overlooks and completely ridiculous scenery without carrying wedding clothes for three miles, changing behind a tree or reaching their ceremony sweaty, exhausted and wondering why they agreed to this.
You should not have to be a hiker to have an adventurous elopement.
When we're choosing locations, we'll look at the whole experience - how far you actually have to walk, the terrain, elevation, parking, scenic roads, overlooks, accessible trails, pull-offs and other ways of reaching beautiful places without turning your wedding day into an endurance event. Sometimes that might mean driving a winding mountain road and walking five minutes to an overlook. It might mean a short forest trail, a boardwalk through a spring, a waterfall with relatively easy access or building several beautiful roadside and scenic stops into the day instead of one long hike.
And this is also part of why River Branch plans to add an off-road vehicle in 2027.
For locations where vehicle access is legal and permitted, the goal is to eventually be able to take couples farther into beautiful places without automatically requiring them to hike there. Think rugged forest roads, mountain access roads and remote scenic areas where the adventure can be getting there together - not necessarily walking there in wedding clothes.
If you want the ten-mile hike, we’re absolutely here for it. If your version of adventure is stepping out of the vehicle somewhere gorgeous with your dress still clean and your legs still functioning, we’re very much here for that too.
The point isn't to prove how adventurous you are. It's to build a day that actually feels good to live through.
You do not have to suddenly develop identical definitions of fun because you're getting married. If one of you would happily disappear into the woods for eight hours and the other is already asking where the nearest bathroom is, I actually need to know that. We can build a day with enough adventure to feel exciting without creating an itinerary somebody is quietly dreading.
That might mean the adventurous person gets their trail while the rest of the day is easier. It might mean scenic driving, short walks and several stops instead of one enormous hike. The goal isn't finding the most adventurous thing you're capable of doing. It's finding the version you'll both be excited to wake up and do.
Absolutely, and I love when we do.
Depending on where we're going, that could mean kayaking, a boat ride, horseback riding, swimming, hiking, fishing, a picnic, exploring a town, visiting a spring, taking a scenic drive or building the experience around something completely different. We'll look at reservations, permits, timing, weather, clothing and how the activity fits into everything else we're doing.
My only real rule is that I don't want to add something solely because it would make a cute photograph. If nobody actually wants to ride the horse, we do not need the horse. The experience has to be worth having even if I put the camera down.
Absolutely. Your ceremony can be an important part of your wedding day without being the only thing you do that day.
Maybe you get married at sunrise and spend the afternoon exploring. Maybe we take a mountain road and stop anywhere that makes us say, “WAIT. Pull over.” Maybe there's kayaking, a boat ride, a waterfall, a picnic, dinner somewhere incredible or several scenic stops connected by one really good drive. A full-day experience gives us room to let the landscape and whatever you actually enjoy doing become part of the wedding instead of treating everything outside the ceremony as extra.
And adventure doesn't automatically mean making the day harder. Sometimes the adventure is the road, the place we find at the end of it and having nowhere else you're supposed to be.
Then you are exactly the kind of couple I want River Branch to become ridiculously good at helping.
Some of the most incredible scenery in the Southeast does require a serious hike. A surprising amount of it doesn't. There are mountain overlooks, forest roads, waterfalls, springs, boardwalks, beaches, scenic highways, pull-offs and shorter trails where we can build an incredible experience without requiring you to train for your wedding.
When I'm researching locations, I don't want to tell you only that a place is beautiful. I want to know what it actually takes to get there. How far are we walking? What's the elevation? Where do we park? Is there a scenic road? Can your guests manage it? Is there another location nearby that gives us something completely different without another two-hour hike?
Beginning in 2027, River Branch also plans to expand this approach with an off-road vehicle for select locations where vehicle access is legal and permitted. That will give us another way to reach certain rugged and remote scenic areas without automatically turning the journey into a hike.
This is something River Branch is planning for 2027, and I'm talking about it now because it is a big part of where I want this company to go.
The idea isn't extreme off-roading for the sake of saying we did it. I want the vehicle to become another tool for access. There are forest roads, mountain access roads and rugged legal routes where the journey itself can be part of the experience and where a capable vehicle can potentially get us considerably closer to the scenery than our legs can.
For the right couple and location, that could eventually mean spending the day traveling between overlooks, forests, trailheads and remote scenic areas with photography happening along the way. You still get the wild places and the feeling of going somewhere - just without automatically assuming every adventure has to happen on foot.
No, and we want to be careful about that from the beginning.
When River Branch adds off-road-supported experiences in 2027, they will only happen on routes where vehicle access is legal and permitted. Public land doesn't mean every road is open to us, and access can change because of seasons, weather, closures, permits or actual road conditions.
So the promise will never be, “We'll drive you anywhere.” The promise is that we'll research the experience as a whole and look for legal, responsible ways of reaching incredible places. If a route isn't allowed, isn't safe or simply isn't a good idea that day, we're not doing it. There are too many beautiful places in the Southeast to make your wedding day the day we decide to argue with a washed-out mountain road.
Not yet. Off-road-supported River Branch experiences are planned for mid-2027.
You absolutely do not have to wait until then to have a low-hike or accessible adventure with River Branch. We're already building our location research around scenic roads, overlooks, shorter trails, boardwalks, easy-access waterfalls, springs and other places where we can get an enormous visual payoff without an enormous physical commitment.
The vehicle will eventually give us more options. It isn't the thing that makes the experience adventurous.
When the vehicle-supported experience launches, it is being planned specifically for the couple, Mike and DeShawna. Additional guests and pets won't ride in the River Branch vehicle.
That doesn't mean guests can't be part of the wedding day. We can build an experience where everyone meets us somewhere accessible for the ceremony, dinner or another portion of the day while the two of you have another part of the adventure on your own. Honestly, that separation could create a pretty fantastic wedding day - time with the people you love and time where it's just the two of you disappearing somewhere beautiful together.
Then we use the other plan... or occasionally discover something better.
Outdoor experiences have variables. Weather moves in, roads close, water levels change, somebody gets wet, the wind develops extremely strong opinions about your hair and sometimes the place we thought would be perfect simply isn't that day. The answer isn't pretending those things won't happen. It's researching well, having backup options and leaving enough room in the day that one change doesn't unravel everything else.
That will be especially important as River Branch eventually moves farther into off-road-supported experiences. A road being open last month doesn't guarantee conditions today. I would rather change the plan and give you an incredible day somewhere else than become so attached to one location that getting there becomes more important than actually enjoying your wedding.

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F.A.Q.

Questions,

Answered.

Proposals + Couple Experiences

I want to propose, but I have absolutely no idea where to start. Can you help?

How do you photograph a surprise proposal without giving it away?

Can you help me choose where to propose?

Can you help with the actual proposal plan too?

Do I need a big setup with flowers, signs and decorations?

What happens after I propose?

What if my partner figures out that something is going on?

Can family or friends be part of the proposal?

Do you photograph engagements too, or only the actual proposal?

What if we’re already married? Are these experiences still for us?

We just want great photographs together. Does it have to be an “adventure”?