A Styled Shoot at The Lodge on Brier Creek: Elevated Equestrian Wedding Style

Roaring River, North Carolina — a styled shoot

PHOTOS BY Ashley Logan

When photographer Ashley Logan and venue owner Jenna Mathis began planning a shoot at The Lodge on Brier Creek in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, they wanted to push back against an assumption. In areas like theirs, Logan explained, weddings are often associated with heavily rustic aesthetics. What they wanted to show was that something quieter and more elevated was also achievable, that the talented local vendors in their region were fully capable of producing work that felt refined without feeling apart from where they actually were.

The inspiration they landed on was Ralph Lauren, specifically the way his aesthetic blends rich textures and western influences with an understated, old-money Americana elegance. The result was a shoot that felt both deeply local and genuinely sophisticated. Plaid envelope liners, dinner menus tied with tiny snaffle bits, horse bookends beside a stone fireplace, and artwork by the noted British equine painter James Lynwood Palmer woven quietly into the stationery. At the center of it all was The Bay Wizard, an American Quarter Horse and former cutting horse known affectionately as Wiz, whose calm presence tied the entire vision together.

The morning of the shoot began with a downpour. With so many vendors involved, rescheduling was not an option, and the team pressed on. By midday, the weather cleared, and as the afternoon progressed and Wiz joined the portraits in the field behind the venue, the light shifted into something warm and golden. “There was such a sense of energy and accomplishment in the air,” Logan recalls, “and it became one of those rare creative experiences where you could physically feel the vision coming to life.”

Vendor Credits