Marriah & Kyle's Montana de Oro Sunset Adventure

If you were to ask us what the best place to take engagement photos in California is,

we would hands down, every darn time, tell you the coastal Montana de Oro State Park, near San Luis Obispo on California’s Central Coast. Though we are now traveling destination wedding photographers, we spent the first three years of our wedding career as solely San Luis Obispo Wedding Photographers! We have travelled the world, and yet we’d tell you that the best place for a sunset engagement shoot is in our own backyard. Marriah & Kyle’s sunset adventure with us is just one of many MDO engagement session galleries we have, and if that doesn’t give you a good idea of how much we love this place, I’m not sure what will.

As you scroll through Marriah & Kyle’s engagement gallery, you’ll get a pretty solid idea of how diverse this state park is. Over the course of a two hour engagement photoshoot, we’re able to visit 3-4 different biomes and landscapes, providing an insane amount of variety within a five mile stretch of road. This place is truly something else if you ask me. Upon entering Montana de Oro, you get a bit of an idea of the landscape you’re entering. Towering sand dunes give way to rugged cliffs battered by the crashing ocean waves. In the distance, you’ll see beautiful Morro Bay, and as you travel inland, you’re greeted by lush hills and eucalyptus forests.

Some of our favorite places to shoot in the park include the eucalyptus forest, which contains a bunch of hidden trails that lead down to a number of beaches at the park. Just adjacent to the forests are sand dunes that dump right into the ocean (something wildly unique I’ve only seen at Montana de Oro!). Hike up one of the dunes for a great vantage point of the rest of the park and Morro Rock! We almost always make a stop at Spooner’s Cove for it’s gorgeous rock formations and towering cliffs. The way these structures and the crashing waves catch the evening sunlight is absolutely magical. We tend to end our engagement shoots exploring Montana de Oro’s Bluff Trail. The four mile trail overlooks the ocean in places, and in others it has the most wild rocks that jut so far out into the ocean, making for the perfect coastal, Big Sur inspired photos.

As Montana de Oro is located in coastal California, there is, weather wise, a best time of year to shoot here. We highly, highly recommend planning your Montana de Oro engagement photos to be in the fall or winter. This may sound a little backward to someone who isn’t familiar with the weather patterns in San Luis Obispo, but trust us! This little chunk of the Central Coast experiences wildly heavy fog for the grand majority of the spring and summer, and Montana de Oro isn’t exempt from this. If, by chance, you are lucky to have a sunny day during these seasons, you’ll likely also experience near hurricane force winds, especially in the spring. All to say, if you are looking for a sunny evening in which you aren’t eating your hair, with no fog, for the perfect golden hour engagement photos, the months from September-February would be the most ideal time for a shoot at MDO!

Keep scrolling through Marriah & Kyle’s gallery to see some of our favorite Montana de Oro engagement photos we’ve ever taken :)

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PRO TIP!!! San Luis Obispo & Big Sur engagement sessions come complimentary when booked with a wedding package :)

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