Our Adventure Elopement – Palo Duro Canyon, Texas

We decided to forego the traditional wedding ceremony & instead have an adventure elopement in Palo Duro Canyon in Texas. We literally couldn’t be happier with our decision to do it this way. It gave us the opportunity to really do things our own way and include different elements that we wouldn’t have had in a “normal” wedding. We got to take a sunrise jeep tour through the canyon with our dog & we even got to hike to our ceremony location.

In this post, I will tell you all the details of our experience at Palo Duro Canyon, including our timeline & how we did everything. I planned most of this day myself and am super happy with how it turned out! If you’re thinking of planning your own adventure elopement, I have a guide to help you out as well! Or if you’re just traveling to Palo Duro Canyon, I have a travel guide for the area with tons of info.

Disclaimer: some photos on this post were taken by a hired professional photographer. She is no longer working as a photographer, so I won’t post her info here, but I wanted to make it clear that I did not take the majority of the photos for this post. Our photographer was AMAZING & I hope you enjoy the images as much as we do.

Our Lovestory

I figured I’d start with this post with a little backstory of our relationship. Kyrk & I have been together since high school – his senior year, my sophomore year. We met on New Year’s Eve through some mutual friends & officially became a couple a few weeks later. We spent our early years going on dates to bowling alleys, high school football games, movie theaters, and other normal teenage activities.

In 2012, Kyrk left home to join the US Navy & we began the long distance part of our relationship. We wrote letters to eachother while he was in bootcamp and I still have every single letter to this day. It always sounds so sweet and romantic to tell people about how we wrote letters. In reality, it truly sucked. Having that be our only means of communication for a few months was definitely hard. Since I’m 2 years younger, I was still in high school when he left so we saw eachother whenever he was allowed leave for the holidays.

We are now coming up on 13 years together (married for 9 years, more on that later), which seems crazy to say at the age of 28! Most of my friends are either newly married or still single at my age. Being together from a younger age, we’ve gotten to enjoy so much of life as a couple already. We’ve had so many adventures & endured a lot of life’s ups and downs by each other’s side.

Getting Engaged & Married

We got engaged & married all within a 3 days timespan. Kyrk was due to change duty stations and I wanted to go with him. Per US Navy rules, in order to do this, we had to be married. We’d already been together about 4 years by this point. We knew we wanted to get married eventually, so we didn’t mind speeding up the process. Our families were shocked at first, but everyone eventually got on board. Kyrk took me to a fancy dinner in downtown Chicago & proposed on the ferris-wheel at Navy Pier. Three days later, we went to the courthouse and got married. We didn’t make a huge deal of it, just brought our families & went out for lunch after to celebrate.

Why We Decided to Have an “Adventure Elopement” Ceremony

Over the first few years of our marriage, I went back and forth about planning a traditional wedding to celebrate with family and friends. But everytime I looked into details and pricing, I gave up. I realized quickly that for the price of a wedding, I could take so many big trips, which was way more important to me. Fast forward 8 years, and I found the “adventure elopement” trend. I was instantly interested, as this would combine a small ceremony with adventure and travel. I felt a little silly deciding to do this since we’d already been married 8 years, but in the end I’m so glad we did. We got to have the special day we wanted & got to plan it our way. Plus, we didnt end up spending a ton & got to make a vacation out of it!

Involving Ollie

Another big reason we loved the idea of not doing the “traditional” wedding, was the ability to involve our dog, Ollie. He was involved in the whole process – I even had a custom-made bowtie & leash for him from etsy, which turned out so adorable!

We got to really include him in our day. He spent the morning with me & the girls, while we got ready. He went on the jeep tour with us, where he was in a ton of photos. And he was the main attraction & greeter at the after party! Unfortunetly, we did decide to leave him home for the actual ceremony portion. We were standing on a ledge and I didn’t want anyone to worry about him during the ceremony, but he got a nice nap in and was ready to play all evening. Having Ollie included and getting so many great photos with him was special. He’s part of our family of course, so it was only right he was involved! Read more about Ollie here!

Our Adventure Elopement Location

We had our ceremony inside Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Texas. We had been on a long weekend trip to Palo Duro Canyon back in 2020 and really liked it. The scenery is nice and it’s pretty peaceful. Most people who go the adventure elopement route tend to use national parks, which are definitely more crowded. By using a scenic state park, I got to avoid the touristy part of it a bit. There weren’t too many hoops to jump through either. We had to make reservations for entrance to the park & pay entrance fees for our guests, but that was about it. Our photographer actually helped a lot by suggesting certain locations within the park & she even met up with me the day before to show me location options.

Our Adventure Elopement Photographer

As I mentioned in the diclaimer above, we hired a professional photographer for the day. She was great – she knew secluded spots in the park to use for photos and the ceremony, and she even helped write out our timline for the day. She is no longer working as a photogrpaher, but I wanted to link the company she used to work with, incase you’re looking for someone! They travel all over to various state parks, national parks, and any beuatiful location. I highly recommend them & their work. I truly think the photographer is one of the most important investments of your special day – you want great photos to look back on forever.

You can find them on their website http://texaselopement.com/elopement-inquiry or their instragrm @texasdventureelopements.

Our Adventure Elopement Timeline

I’m going to give a brief description of how we laid out our day & I’ll go into further details about all the aspects later in the post.

• 3am – I woke up super early to start getting ready since we did sunrise photos. I wanted plenty of time to do my hair & makeup and to take “getting ready” pictures. Kyrk, of course, did not get up at 3 am.
• 630am – We did our “first look” & then headed out the door to begin the first part of our day!
• 7am – We went to Palo Duro Creek Ranch. It’s a privately owned ranch, right beside Palo Duro Canyon State Park. The ranch land is still part of the canyon, so it’s super scenic, it’s just not legally part of the state park itself. Here, we did a private jeep tour through the canyon to some amazing photo spots. We even got to bring our pup, so this was a super awesome way to start our day.
• 10am – We met up with our families and hiked out to our location for the ceremony. We chose a pretty short hike, since not everyone in our family loves hiking as much as us. Once we got the spot, we had a little vow renewal ceremony & then took some family photos.
• After the ceremony was over, Kyrk & I actually took a nap for a bit. I was so tired from being up so early. Later in the day, we met our families at a cute little winery in town for a tasting & then everyone came over to our cabin for pizza and games. All in all, our day was so stress free & just fun.

Getting Ready

As I mentioned earlier, I got up around 3 am to get ready for our day. While I have my cosmetology license & a pretty good understanding of how to do my hair and makeup, I was still VERY nervous about it, so I left plenty of time in my schedule for mishaps.

My mom & sisters came over to spend the morning with me while I got ready. We had a good time just hanging out, taking cute pictures, and having coffee. I felt so special that everyone was willing to be up so early to come spend the morning with me. A fun highlight of the morning was getting to do my sisters’ hair. As I’ve grown up styling their hair, it typically annoys me to do it, but I look back on it as a really special part of my day. Looking back, having this special morning with my mom & sisters is something I would’ve missed out on by not having any kind of wedding day. Being able to dance around with my sisters and have pictures of my mom helping me with my dress makes me really grateful that I did the ceremony.

“First Look”

Kyrk & I got ready in different parts of the house. This wasn’t actually planned, it just kind of happened that way. But I’m sorta glad it went that way, as it allowed us to have that fun first look. I felt so giddy coming out of the room for him to see me all dressed up. We kicked my mom & sisters out and got to have that special moment, just the two of us. Kyrk doesn’t really ever dress up, so it was super fun seeing him in his fancy outfit too.

Jeep Tour

Our jeep tour was through Palo Duro Creek Ranch & we can’t recommend them enough! The owner, Case, was such nice guy & really made the experience great. We did this privately – just us, our dog, the photographer, and my sister. We just had my sister come along specifically to take our dog whenever we wanted pictures he wasn’t in. The owner drove us down into the canyon and up to the top again and the views were SO awesome the whole time. We basically spent a few hours driving around and stopping for fun pictures. The photographer was great in prompting us with poses and we were laughing all morning long. I totally recommend allotting time in your day to do something special like this – just you & your partner (& pup too)!

Our Vow Renewal Ceremony

Since we planned out most of the day ourselves, I even wrote my own ceremony script. I actually ended up writing it last minute at around 11:30 pm the night before. We had originally hired an officiant to lead the ceremony and write the script, but she ended up falling through. It was a blessing in disguise though. It was nice writing my own script and making it personal. We asked my sister to lead the ceremony instead, which made it more special too.

We met our families and hiked as a big group to the beautiful spot we picked. I know it was somewhere on the CCC Trail in Palo Duro Canyon, but I dont have exact details. My photographer knew about the spot, and it isn’t marked on a trail map. This is exactly why hiring a photographer who knows the area well, is very important!

We used our ceremony as a vow renewal, which kept it short, but sweet. I totally encourage you to renew your vows, even if you had a “normal” wedding. I didn’t expect to feel as emotional as I did, it was lovely.

After we said our vows & ended the ceremony, we took some family photos in the beautiful location and hiked back to the trailhead. Everyone went their seperate ways for a few hours – some explored the park more, but Kyrk & I napped!

After Party

We rented a beautiful house on VRBO to spend the weekend at. We made sure to find a place with a large backyard so our families could come over throughout the weekend to play games. The cabin had an awesome view of the canyon, a pickleball court, horseshoes, corn-hole, and even food to feed the wildlife. Throughout the weekend we saw tons of birds, aoudad sheep, deer, and even a coyote in the cabin’s backyard!

For our after party, we ordered pizza, had a hot cocoa bar, and plenty of adult drinks. I even made Caramel Apple Sangria, which ran out pretty quickly! We spent the evening playing games, eating food, and just hanging out. After our families left for the evening, Kyrk & I actually used the telescope at the cabin to look at the stars. I know that sounds cheesy, but it was super fun and unique! Palo Duro Canyon is kind of in the middle of nowhere, so we could see so many stars compared to back home.

What I’d Do Differently

I loved the way our day went, but there were a few small things I’d maybe change if I could.

• I definitely would’ve paid someone to do my hair and makeup, rather than do it myself. I think it would have been nice to get pampered and not feel so nervous about doing it.
• I maybe would have expanded the guest list a little. We kept it very small – mostly just parents & siblings. We had our reasons for this – the cabin wouldn’t allow many people over & we didn’t want to worry about planning activities all weekend for a huge group of people, but I do wish more distant family and a few friends could’ve been involved.
• On the same vain as above, I maybe would’ve liked a bigger after party or even a reception. I loved the way our day and even the the whole weekend went, but I do sometimes find myself wishing I had the big reception party to dance with friends. I think you could totally have both aspects, if that’simportant to you too. Looking back, I could’ve had the “adventure elopement” and kept it small, but planned a larger party or reception for afterwards. Or we even could have had the reception a different weekend.

We absolutely LOVED our elopement/vow renewal day. And the whole weekend afterwards was great too. Our families stuck around all weekend, so we got to enjoy activities together like an escape room & Texas’ largest steakhouse! We so appreciate our families travelling to spend the time with us & I will cherish the memories from that weekend forever. If you need advice for planning your own elopement, please email me or leave a comment below—I’d love to help! Also check out my Guide to Planning An Adventure Elopement! The options for your special day are truly endless.