Chapel of Ease St. Helena Island South Carolina Engagement Photos

High school sweethearts – that’s how Jessi and Brian met! It was destined to be when the two were placed in the same junior biology class. Their first date was at Long Horn and they talked the entire time. This has been a long friendship, as I met Jessi her senior year of high school, one year after her and Brian began seeing each other, and they will be celebrating over 10 years of dating very soon!

When Jessi asked me to photo her wedding in Beaufort, SC, I said that we MUST take photos with the gorgeous oak trees covered in Spanish moss. I love how it gently sways in the breeze like a diaphanous curtain. We met on a very hot, very muggy, and very buggy day at the Chapel of Ease on St. Helena Island, very close to Beaufort. This was my first visit to Beaufort – a lovely town reminiscent of Charleston, but smaller.

According to Colonial history, chapels of ease were constructed near plantations, as they were closer than traveling to downtown Beaufort. This particular location was built using tabby construction between 1742 and 1747. It was originally known as the White Church, because the combination of oyster shells and lime caused the structure to appear to glow white. Services ceased after the church was heavily damaged in a forest fire in 1886.

But back to Jessi and Brian….they graduated college together and moved to Columbia, SC, for work. They always enjoy dinner together, so Brian proposed over dinner with a very nice bottle of wine. A few years ago, Brian’s parents bought a gorgeous home in Beaufort right on Factory Creek. Since family is so important to Jessi and Brian, they thought his parents home on the water would be the perfect spot to get married!

And major kudos to Brian! Not-so-fun fact: he broke his femur exactly one month prior to the wedding and is still on crutches. We modified and made the posing work for him so he could stash the crutches for our shoot. You rocked it Brian!