Hello, I'm Julie, the founder and co-creator of Magnolia + Ember.

My husband, Colin, and I share some of the most intimate days in a couple's life with them. By trade, we are a photo & video team planning adventure weddings, but our passion comes from a place far beyond the landscapes. Our energy and personal experiences are the life-force behind our work. We are ceremonialists with a gift of intentionality and presence.

Myself, I'm an overly detailed storyteller, and these are immersive stories that are too long for an Instagram caption. Moments that have shaped the core of M+E.

You deserve to know who you’re spending your elopement day with.

P.S., I wrote a book too

It's how we met! Colin borrowed a copy after seeing it on someone's coffee table. He sent me an email that started it all.

September 22, 2025

Montana carried the energy of vulnerability and honest love. It felt humbling and sincere. To me, it became a symbolic representation of Home. Not one that my human body has lived in, but a homely ground that my spirit is infused into. Intuitively, I knew that when Montana’s energy manifested in physical form in my life that I would indeed be at home within.

Read the origin story of why this place became so important and our first matching tattoos:
“tie me tight in little strands of paradise” a nod to John Mayer and his lyrical verses.

July 29, 2025

sonder
n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

This is the long story short about our Colorado elopement location, meeting Dermot Kennedy, chasing the fullest version of ourselves, and a bookstore in Nashville.

July 20, 2025

We are more than your elopement photo + video team.

Our extensive background in the outdoors allows us to help you fully prepare and navigate any style of activities alongside you. We are skilled with the ability to create your “dream come true” effortlessly, but our service stretches beyond guiding you through planning an elopement and capturing the moments.

What you see on the surface is a couple who hiked 16+ miles total, danced in the forest filled with misty fog and glowing ferns, shared freeze-dried cheesecake in lieu of cutting a cake, spent the night in a backcountry shelter with strangers, witnessed the best view in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and had an awesome trip together.

What you don’t see simply by looking at the gallery is much deeper…

April 6, 2025

Life is transformation. We are stripped, fragmented, and fractured into our many moving parts time and time again. We are the watchers from within, sitting front row to experience the ever-changing nature of the Universe. This change, this pattern, shows itself throughout our external world. Indigenous people believe ferns represent new beginnings. The dense ferns that draped the entire forest floor on our first camping trip were present in the many unfolding moments of Us that followed. Our story is powerful, and the symbolic journey we see and feel reminds us that the world is alive and breathing.

November 15, 2024

Hurricane Helene brought chaos and change into the lives of so many people. Asheville and surrounding areas on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina became impassable. For us, and Jackie and Dave, this meant a last minute change of elopement plans. In only 4 days, we pivoted, crafting the adventure of a lifetime in Vermont.

No matter how an elopement unfolds, we know that we are always given exactly what is meant for us. Rather than expectations, we chase our intentions and how we want to feel during an experience, and that is what drives the creative process of helping couples plan adventures. Our job as your photographers is not only to capture the day, but guide you into being fully present. Connection is the fundamental principle of our art.

Smoky Mountains | Worldwide