Here’s one bride who does NOT want to take the plunge.
In a wedding moment that would take anyone’s breath away, a woman in a full bridal gown was captured braving one of America’s toughest rock-climbing peaks as part of a photo shoot for an extreme wedding company.
The “bride” is seen hanging 3,000-feet in the air on a thin rope between two peaks at the top of Lost Arrow Spire in California’s Yosemite National Park.
The breathtaking images were snapped by photographer Ben Horton for a wedding travel-adventure company that was being started by his friend Gil Weiss. Weiss would later die while climbing in Peru.
“I’ve shot a lot of adventure and climbing photography, and Gil’s optimistic personality was infectious, so he managed to convince me to shoot this wedding for him,” Horton said.
“He and our friend Brad showed up in Yosemite’s camp with racks of climbing gear and a wedding dress,” he said. “Gil proceeded to have the ladies of camp try on the dress and then invited a couple of them to climb the Lost Arrow Spire with us.
“We shot over the next two days and managed to get some amazing photos that we were all quite excited about.”
Horton said it was a “rush” snapping the shots from the edge of the Yosemite cliff, where certain death was only a few steps away.
“Even though I’ve been shooting climbing for a long time, the thrill you get hanging from a rope 3,000 feet in the air never really quite goes away,” he said.
“Even while standing on the spire, you only have about three feet in either direction before the ground drops away and you can look down on birds soaring thousands of feet above the valley floor.”
Horton said the shoot was Weiss’ idea.
“It wasn’t actually that hard to convince me,” he said. “Climbing with Gil had put me in some of the most amazing places I’ve been in my life.”
Horton said that Weiss’ death came before he was able to really get the company off the ground.
“Sadly before Gil was able to realize his dream of guiding people to these amazing places, he and another friend of mine took a fall while climbing in Peru, and both of them passed away.
“However, the iconic photographs I got serve as a great reminder that life should be lived, and to pursue my dreams while I still can.”