Check out this amazing Winchester Lookout elopement on Mt Baker for tons of Washington mountain elopement inspo!!

Autumn and Matt literally experienced an elopement-day MIRACLE when the wildfire smoke cleared out for their date. This day was BEAUTIFUL, from their gorgeous hike to their picturesque ceremony to them jumping into the lake at the end of the day!

We began their day by starting our hike in the morning. The whole week we had encountered SO much smoke from the surrounding wildfires and the mountains hadn’t even been VISIBLE that week. But luckily the elopement gods were on our side and the smoke literally began to clear as we ascended the hike! We made it to the lookout by noon and had some snacks and began to prepare for the ceremony! The trail up to Winchester Mountain is only about two miles long with 1300 feet of vertical gain, with access to a lookout at 6500 feet with outstanding 360 degree views! The lookout unfortunately was vandalized by snowboarders over the winter, but was still open and just as cute as ever. Winchester Lookout is such a great place for your elopement because the hike is gorgeous, pretty easy, and the views are INSANE.

These guys decided to get ready for their ceremony TOGETHER, with her helping him button up his jacket and him zipping up her dress! I love it when couples get ready together, its sooooo romantic and lovely and such a good metaphor for marriage and you guys preparing together! This Winchester Lookout elopement was so special because we had the whole mountain to ourselves and really had so much privacy during their day which isn’t always the case during the summer on a popular hike!

Here’s another blog post that you can use for a resource for planning your elopement!

For their ceremony, they walked up to their location together to the Jurassic world soundtrack! Too cool! They then listened to their recorded ceremony that one of their friends had pre-recorded for them! This is such a great idea for couples that want to elope by themselves but still want to involve friends or family and have them be involved in the ceremony! Meredith made sure to include a time stamp for when to pause her so Matt and Autumn could say their vows to each other.

During their ceremony, we made sure to follow leave no trace principles! Here’s a blog post about how to follow LNT during your elopement!

After their ceremony, they filled a vial with dirt from their ceremony location. Matt and Autumn are collecting dirt from all of the places that they travel together and are gifting them to their children when they die with all of the coordinates and vials of dirt so the children can return the dirt to the location and experience all of the adventures that their parents had done together! What a fun idea!

Here’s some other great trails that you could plan your elopement at!

On the hike down, we stopped at a snow field and popped some champagne! After that we all glissaded down the snowfield for some elopement day fun! Matt and Autumn are big time mountaineers and have summited lots of peaks together and glissading is always a fun part of their adventures! They also summited Mt Shuksan several days after the elopement (still bummed they didn’t invite me 😭)

After their Winchester Lookout Elopement hike, they jumped (waded lol) into the lake at the end of the trail! Matt was thrillllleddddddd for this icy activity (psych lol) and they spent 0.3 seconds in the water after getting in! The lakes actually are made from snowmelt from the actual mountain so they are prettyyyyy cold even in the summer!

About Winchester Lookout

Since it’s part of a national forest & it begins on Forest Service land, you’ll need a Northwest Forest pass, or an America the Beautiful pass to park at the base of Mt. Winchester.

Check out some other blog posts of great places to elope at!

The Oregon Coast  

The North Cascades

Mt Washington