Whitestone Inn

I took a trip just the other weekend to Whitestone Inn between Chattanooga and Knoxville. Beau Moffatt and I were headed into the sticks to photograph a wedding there. I was a little anxious, as usual, before the wedding, but my creative worries melted away when we drove up to the lookout at Whitestone.

I had not shot a wedding located this far outside of Cleveland or Chattanooga. However, I must say that this couple picked a perfect place to have a destination wedding. Whitestone started as a bed and breakfast located at the top of a ridge overlooking the head of the Tennessee River. A wedding chapel and a reception hall was later added making this location ideal for a beautiful wedding. Our shots turned out incredibly well with the 360 acres of camp grounds, cottage buildings with billowing lakes nestled between the rolling mountains in the background.

This place is ideal for city slickers wanting to get away. You truly are in the middle of nowhere. The resort is surrounded by farms and pastures with the more then occasional road kill to dodge on the roads. Because GPS is little help on these country roads, we located it the old fashioned way, map and directions.

However, for the locals, it’s just another small town. Populated mostly with farmers, life out these is slower and simpler. Rush hour is early morning columbine trackers and pickups pulling trailers. At the only fork in the road there is a convenient store as old as the town itself where you might see a group of men reclined back on their chairs drinking some morning coffee. I imagined it would be black and strong, they having never known nor cared for the specialties of Starbucks coffee.

We were hard pressed to find certain necessities out there. Beau and I drove forty minutes to Kingston, the next closest town, to pick up some lunch and grab a few pictures of the bride getting her hair done. At subway we asked where a coffee shop was, needing a caffeine fix. There was none. We were informed that a Starbucks opened a while back but it soon went out of business. The fact that Starbucks global enterprise, seeming able to survive anywhere like a resilient weed, was put out of business by this sleepy rural town made me quite impressed. And sad that I couldn’t get coffee.

All in all, the wedding and reception was absolutely stunning. The Bride and groom were so relaxed and beautiful that it made photographing them so easy. Shooting with Beau was fun and I still continue to learn so much from him. However, as the night wore on, I couldn’t resist slipping way for a few minutes during to look out over the valley. Illuminated by the moon and stars the whole valley shimmered with cool white light.