Destination wedding
Plan the wedding from home, meet us the day before: a scouting visit, twelve hours on the day and 500 photographs in a private gallery within three weeks.
- Reply within about two hours
- Price agreed before the session
- Free reschedule for bad weather
What’s included
- 500 retouched photographs
- Twelve hours of coverage, plus a scouting visit the day before
- A written answer on what your ceremony does and does not require legally
- Private gallery within three weeks
Who it is for
Who books this, and why
Couples who have never seen the venue in person
You chose a quinta in the Douro or a house in Comporta from photographs and a video call. The scouting visit the day before is where what you imagined is checked against what is there.
Families flying in from several countries
Guests arriving on different flights, a ceremony in the afternoon, a party that runs late. Twelve hours covers a longer day than a local wedding, because guests who travelled this far do not leave early.
Couples unsure what is legally required
Most advice online is written for France or Italy. You get a written answer on what your ceremony does and does not require in Portugal before you book anything else.
Portfolio
Destination wedding portfolio
A selection of destination wedding shots to inspire your shoot.
How it works
From the first message to your gallery
Start with the legal question
Tell us your nationalities and whether you want a civil, religious or symbolic ceremony. The written answer comes first, because it decides whether the date needs a conservatória.
Plan it all by message and call
Venue, ceremony time, portrait locations and the group-photo list are agreed remotely with you and your planner. Nobody needs to fly out beforehand to meet us.
The scouting visit, the day before
The photographer walks the venue at the hours that matter, finds where the light is at five and where it has gone by seven, and meets the coordinator. Anything that changes the plan is settled that evening.
Twelve hours, then 500 photographs in three weeks
From getting ready to well into the party. The private gallery arrives within three weeks, and the link can go straight to guests in every country.
Four details — place, date, session and how to reach you — are enough for a written quote. Nothing to pay to ask.
Before the session
How to prepare
Short, practical, and the part most people skip. None of it costs anything, and all of it shows in the photographs.
- Send your planner’s and venue coordinator’s contacts early, so questions go to them and not through you.
- Put the scouting visit in your own schedule too — an hour with the couple at the venue saves an hour on the day.
- Collect guests’ arrival times in one place; the timing plan needs to know who is there for the morning.
- Pack the rings, vows and anything heirloom in hand luggage, not in the hold.
- Ask the venue now whether there is a covered space with daylight, in case the weather turns.
- Confirm the document list with the conservatória you will use, not with an article.
Book Destination wedding in your city
Available in 5 Portuguese cities and destinations. Choose yours.
About this session
The paperwork question nobody answers properly
- Starting from
- €1,900
- Duration
- 12 hours
- Edited photos
- 500
- Cities
- 5
Most couples planning a wedding abroad are reading advice written for France or Italy, and it gives them the wrong answer for Portugal. France requires one of the couple to have been resident in the commune for thirty continuous days before the banns are published, which is why so many couples who wanted to marry there did not, and held a symbolic ceremony instead. Portugal sets no residency requirement for foreigners at all. A civil marriage is processed at a Conservatória do Registo Civil through the processo preliminar de casamento, and what it asks for is documents rather than time spent living here.
That is the structural answer and it is stable. The procedural detail is not: the exact list depends on your nationality and typically involves apostilled birth certificates, certified translations and, for some countries, a certificate of legal capacity to marry. Confirm the current requirements with the conservatória you intend to use rather than with a blog post, including this one. What matters for planning is that you do not need to move here first, and that changes which country a destination wedding is actually easy in.
Frequently asked questions about Destination wedding
Can we actually get legally married in Portugal?
Yes, and this is the part most couples get wrong because they are reading advice written for France or Italy. Portugal sets no residency requirement for foreigners: a civil marriage is processed at a Conservatória do Registo Civil, and what it needs is documents rather than time spent living here. Confirm the current list with the conservatória you will use — it varies by nationality — but the structural answer is that you do not have to live here first.
Do you handle the marriage paperwork for us?
No. You get a written answer on what your ceremony does and does not require, so you know which route you are on before booking anything. The process itself runs through a Conservatória do Registo Civil, and the current document list is confirmed with them.
Which part of Portugal should we choose?
It depends on the month more than the map. The Algarve is unusable in the middle of a July day and at its best in October; Sintra is misty from October to April; the Douro is at its fullest in harvest season. Tell us the date you are considering and we will say which regions suit it.
What exactly happens on the scouting visit?
The photographer walks the ceremony site, the portrait locations and the party space at roughly the hours they will be used, and checks them against the timing plan. It is where a courtyard that looked perfect in the brochure turns out to be in shade by five, and where the alternative is chosen.
We cannot visit Portugal before the wedding. Is that a problem?
No. The service is built for exactly that. Everything before the scouting visit happens by message and call, and the visit itself is done by the photographer the day before, so the first time you are on site together is when it counts.
Can guests who could not travel see the photographs?
Yes. The gallery is private but the link is yours to share, and the photographs can be downloaded and passed on freely for personal use — to grandparents, to friends who stayed home, to anyone on the guest list in any country.
Destination wedding, from €1,900
Tell us the place and the date. You get a written quote within about two hours during the working day, and the price you are quoted is the price you pay.