The Best of Both Worlds - A Coastal Woodland Engagement Shoot
Choosing a location for your engagement session can be tough,
especially if you’re looking to fit a variety of settings into one shoot! On the Central Coast of California, there very fortunately is no shortage of stunning locations for engagement shoots, and for Abby and Eric’s session, we found ourselves at a very familiar and equally beautiful place: Montana de Oro.
If you’ve looked through our couple and engagement session galleries, you might notice we are at MDO all the time. And it’s for good reason. Located on over 8000 acres along San Luis Obispo county’s rugged coastline, you can find just about every type of environment imaginable in one condensed area. For couples like Abby and Eric who are looking for a few different spots, this is the perfect place!
We began Abby and Eric’s session in the dense eucalyptus forest, where we traversed one of our favorite little trails that leads down to a gorgeous section of Montana de Oro’s seven miles of coastline. A super unique feature of MDO is the oceanfront sand dunes that empty straight into the ocean. Upon climbing them, you can see from Morro Bay all the way down the coastline!
Below the dunes is one of the rocky beaches MDO is known for, and we spent a little time there before hiking back up to the forest and heading to, in our opinion, the park’s most stunning cove, for more photos. Spooner’s Cove sits below opposing bluffs and features rock formations and the crashing waves people come to the coast looking for. The rugged surf against the coastline creates a stunning sea spray that catches light so beautifully, and is one of the many reasons we love MDO, especially in the winter time!
Our last stop on Abby & Eric’s engagement adventure was the bluff trail. The bluffs were finally dotted with yellow wildflowers, common for early spring in San Luis Obispo, and complimented the golden color of the February sunlight perfectly. We’ve been hitting a certain spot on the bluffs a bunch lately! Between the orange sunset and massive waves that are common in the winter time around here, the contrast in color and diffused sunlight has been incredible lately. We had a super colorful sunset on the walk back to the cars, and snapped a few final photos of Abby and Eric as blue hour set in!
We’re really not ready to part ways with the sunny winter season at Montana de Oro. Pro tip: the fog rolls in during mid March and typically doesn’t leave until late August, so if you’re planning and engagement shoot at Montana de Oro, we highly recommend visiting in September to February if you like sunlight!
Enjoy some of our favorites from Abby & Eric’s shoot! Oh, and we promise our next blog post isn’t about MDO ;)
Getting married? We offer complimentary engagement sessions with our wedding packages :)
A gorgeous, late summer, beachfront wedding in San Clemente was full of SoCal magic and love and energy, as Hannah and Kyle were married in the presence of their closest loved ones.