Destination Weddings & Elopements

I travel, and it’s some of my favorite work.

I’ve photographed weddings across the country and overseas — a wedding on the water in Puerto Vallarta, winter weddings in Ottowa and Colorado, beach weddings in Florida and the Carolinas and Georgia. If the place you’ve chosen means something to you, getting there is part of what I love about this work, not a hassle to be charged for. And if you’re having a wedding in a place I’ve never been and would like to visit and photograph … let’s talk.

Small stays small. The place gets its due.

A destination wedding or elopement isn’t a bigger version of the day — it’s the same intimate day, somewhere that matters. So the coverage hours look a lot like my at-home packages: an elopement with two to five people is still an elopement, and a small destination wedding is still small. I’m not there to shoot until the last guest leaves.

What changes is the place. The destination is a guest at your wedding — the light, the landscape, the texture of where you are — so I photograph more of it: the detail and setting images that put your day somewhere specific, not just anywhere. That’s why these galleries run larger even though the hours don’t. A destination elopements and weddings run roughly 20% more images. More of the place, not more of the clock.

The Spotlight Session

Destination weddings include a Spotlight Session — a dedicated hour or so, just the two of you and the camera, in and around the place you brought everyone to. No timeline, no guests, nothing to keep to. Sometimes I’ll also bring back images I made of the location on my own — early light, an empty stretch of coast, the view you’ll want to remember — because when you’ve traveled this far, the place is part of the story too. It comes back as its own set of 20–40 images, separate from your wedding-day gallery.

How travel works

When your wedding is somewhere that takes travel, here’s exactly how I handle it — so nothing’s left to chance on the day and nothing’s a surprise on the invoice.

• I arrive the afternoon before — always. A wedding can’t be re-shot, so I won’t leave it exposed to a delayed flight, a missed connection, or holiday traffic. Getting in a day early means I’m rested, unhurried, and already have a feel for the place and its light before your day begins.
• I stay the night of the wedding. I’m not going to photograph your entire day and then drive or fly home exhausted — that’s how gear gets left behind and late drives turn dangerous. Two nights’ lodging, the night before and the night after, is built into every trip and isn’t something I cut.
• Whether I drive or fly comes down to distance. Anywhere within about seven hours of Atlanta, I drive — and that reaches farther than people expect: Asheville and Oak Island in the Carolinas, Memphis, Tampa, New Orleans, and everywhere between. Beyond that, I fly, which adds airfare and a rental car once I’m there.
• My gear flies with me, never beneath the plane. When I fly, my cameras and a wedding outfit are my carry-on; it’s my personal bag that gets checked. If an airline misplaces a bag, it will never be the one with your wedding in it — I walk off the plane ready to work no matter what.

What I bill for. Travel is billed at cost — actual receipts, no markup — and I include copies of every receipt with your invoice:

• Mileage for drives (at the current IRS business rate), or airfare and a rental car when I fly
• Two nights’ lodging — the night before and the night of
• Checked gear and baggage fees
• Meals and incidentals

If you’d rather arrange lodging yourself, you’re welcome to — I only ask that it be where you and your guests are staying, or close by, so I’m near everything the morning of and easy to reach.

The deposit. Once we’ve talked it through and I’ve built you an estimate, a travel deposit of half the estimated travel cost reserves it; the rest is settled against actual receipts with your final payment. You’ll always see where every dollar went.

Tell me where you’re dreaming of. If your date’s open and the place sounds like something I’d love to photograph, I want to hear about it.