Their ceremony was emotional, warm, and dotted brightly with poignant letters from their best friends who stood by them. Grandparents and older family watched with caution as I’m sure they felt Shannon & Todd were a little too close to the edge for comfort. But for the couple, that kind of exposure is just their average weekend activity. After their first kiss, we snapped a few photos on the cliff, then quested our way down a switchbacked dirt road in their truck, stopping for photos at a spot appropriately named “Thelma & Louise Point”.

There is a magic to the desert that is impossible to truly understand until you’re standing 800 feet up on a cliff feeling the updraft from the canyon below, seeing the colors of the sunset dance across the vast open sky. Its ethereal—the way the space carries sound, the way you can feel entirely alone and yet connected to all that surrounds you. I will never, ever get over the way it feels to stand so small in a place so encapsulating like Canyonlands National Park.