Destination and Northeast Ohio Wedding Photographer Blog

Final Day of Corey's Favorite Things!!!!

August 25, 2009

The final day of our trip also happened to be our second wedding anniversary and more important IT DID NOT RAIN!

I begged and pleaded with my hubby to at least take me to ONE NC lighthouse I hadn’t seen so we went off to see Oak Island Lighthouse. We then followed that up with stopping at Orton Plantation and finally Poplar Grove Plantation. That was a perfect anniversary for me!! We ended the day with our final day of visiting my husband’s uncle who lives in the area before heading back to our hotel.

All in all it was a good vacation but I’m going to have to make sure to put in an order for no rain next time!

Oak Island Lighthouse is one of the newest lighthouses in the United States, being built in 1958. It’s definitely one of the most unique lighthouses I’ve ever seen. The lighthouse is made up entirely of concrete which was colored when it was poured so it will never need repainting. It is also the second brightest lighthouse in the world, following one in France. Finally this lighthouse does not have stairs inside but instead it has multiple ladders – which is why I chose not to climb it (you can’t take pics inside and can’t climb to the top w/o an appointment). It was a very interesting stop and I’m glad I got to see it!

I love Sea Oats. I wanted them in my bouquet for my wedding but there’s that pesky law about not picking them and I just didn’t have time to grow my own (or the climate). Ah well, I guess I’ll just have to keep taking pictures of them!

Our next stop was Orton Plantation which sits on the Cape Fear River and is one of the only surviving plantations left on the river (most were burned during the Civil War). As I’ve said before, I love old homes and when they’re done up so pretty – well it’s hard not to love them! This plantation is still a private residence but the gardens are open to the public – and they are stunning. For the movie & television fans out there, you may like to know that this plantation is also featured in Firestarter, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, A Walk to Remember, Dawson’s Creek and One Tree Hill.

The Scroll Gardens which overlook Cape Fear River.

The Crooked Bridge – there is an old belief that ghosts and evil spirits could only move in a straight line, so the owners built this bridge crooked so that any evil spirits that were following them would fall into the water and die.

There are a lot of birds, animals and insects on the plantation but this one is the one that held still the longest. They sure don’t make spiders like this in Ohio – thank god!

Luola’s Chapel which was featured in A Walk to Remember as the place where they got married. It has been used a lot in movies…. I love it! Does anyone getting married here need a photographer?? 😉

The one thing I think I love more than the houses themselves are the gorgeous Live Oak lined driveways that lead to the estates in the south. The Spanish Moss is a lovely touch too!

Our next stop was Poplar Grove Plantation. It was just moments before they closed so I took only a few quick shots before enjoying the tour!

2 comments

Brian PalmerAugust 25, 2009 - 2:18 PM

Awesome work Corey, Makes me want to go visit NC.ReplyCancel
Corey Ann Photography | BlogFebruary 5, 2011 - 10:53 AM

[…] floored when I discovered that my grandparents had visited the same plantation near Wilmington that I had a year before and had taken an image of it from almost the same angle as I had. There are multiple angles to […]ReplyCancel

Wilmington North Carolina

August 23, 2009

Did I mention that it rained pretty much our entire vacation? Well in case I didn’t, it rained. HARD. Every day almost due to a storm system that stalled over the coast of North Carolina for a few days. We decided to head to downtown Wilmington for the day since there were semi-dry stuff that we could do and the things I wanted to do on Saturday I wanted to have dry weather for. So off to downtown we went!!!

Our first stop was Bellamy Mansion, a gorgeous antebellum home that is featured in many ads for Wilmington, with good reason. If you didn’t know from visits to my blogs, I have a bit of a fascination with old homes and estates. Perhaps it’s because my childhood home (before moving to the one I’m in now that I’ve lived in most of the years since I was 6!) was a century home? Who knows but I just LOVE old homes. This house is grand and just stunning. The tour was amazing and I highly recommend it to all. They even let you up in the belvedere, which is VERY rare – and a stunning view! This is a super quick panoramic (and I mean quick, due to the pouring rain!) I took of the front.

The back of the mansion.

An old wheelchair that was used in the home for the last member of the family to live in the home.

As soon as I walked into the parlor I was drawn to this picture and then discovered that one of the daughters of the owner of the house painted this, what talent!!!!

Gotta love the visit to the latrine 😉

After our trip to Bellamy, we went on a trolley tour of downtown since it was still raining. Here is a house that I loved that’s historic – and complete with Crepe Myrtles. I want them for my house but have a feeling they wouldn’t like Ohio winters!!

Another historic home on the tour, I adored the unique look to this home with the massive columns!

Yet another home I want to say is the Caroline Kennedy house?? I could be VERY wrong.

As we were walking back to our car, we saw them breaking down the set for One Tree Hill which they were filming downtown that day. There were a TON – and I mean a TON – of teenage girls running around downtown and we overheard that the stars were out and filming for some of the day.

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The Trip That Wasn’t

August 21, 2009

There were a few reasons for choosing to go down to Ocracoke/Wilmington for our anniversary trip. We ended up with the Outer Banks because that’s where we got married 2 years ago and Ocracoke b/c we’ve always wanted to stay there. I’ve always wanted to see Portsmouth Island so we decided to do the ATV tour while we were there. The second reason is that I’ve always wanted to see Cape Lookout in person, it’s been the lighthouse that I’ve wanted to see since I first took a trip to the Outer Banks. My parents always tried in vain to explain that it was pretty far away but I insisted it’s “just right there” ahh the days of not knowing how far things really WERE from point a to b thanks to Mapquest. So I figured while we were there we could go see Cape Lookout as well, then hit Wilmington to visit Chris’s uncle for a few days before coming home.

Then the rain came and ruined my vacation! When I say rain, I mean 10 inches in a day rain in the area – MONSOON rain! Our ATV tour got canceled and as soon as we got to the mainland from the ferry well… see for yourself.

This is the sight that greeted us when we got to Cedar Island from Ocracoke. About 3 minutes later the skies opened and it was pretty scary for a bit. The system stalled right over Cape Lookout and Harkers Island – where you take the ferry to Cape Lookout so it was yet another thing that was a ‘must do’ that wasn’t. Someday… someday!

So what did we do instead? We swung though Emerald Isle on the way to visit Chris’s nieces that were vacationing with their mom and visited for a bit before heading down to Wilmington. Of course in Emerald Isle – just a few miles south of Cape Lookout – there wasn’t a drop of rain in sight. I have the BEST luck! 🙂

We make it to our hotel on Wrightsville Beach and dropped our gear and went straight to the beach. I searched for sea glass, some shells and of course took some pics.