Elopement
Five hours around the two of you and the places you came for, arranged by the light and the weather rather than a room booking — 200 photographs in two weeks.
- Reply within about two hours
- Price agreed before the session
- Free reschedule for bad weather
What’s included
- 200 retouched photographs
- Five hours of coverage
- Locations scouted for the hour you are there
- Private gallery within two weeks
Who it is for
Who books this, and why
Couples who do not want an audience
No speeches, no seating plan and no one to entertain. The day is for the two of you, and a dozen people at most if you want them there.
Couples who married at home and want the day here
The paperwork already done somewhere else, and a morning on a cliff in Portugal to mark it properly. The coverage is the same whether the vows are legal or not.
People who picked the landscape first
Sete Cidades in the Azores, the ridge at Pico do Arieiro above the cloud, the forest of the Serra de Sintra in mist. When the place is the point, the timing has to follow it.
Portfolio
Elopement portfolio
A selection of elopement shots to inspire your shoot.
How it works
From the first message to your gallery
Tell us the place, or the kind of place
Sea, mountain, forest, city — or a specific spot you have seen. We come back with what works at which hour, and what needs a ticket or written authorisation.
Shape the five hours
Getting ready or not, one location or two within an hour’s drive, vows at sunrise or at the end of the day. The order is set by the light, and there is no one else’s timetable to fit.
Keep a second morning in hand
An elopement can move by a day. Watch the forecast together in the last forty-eight hours and choose the better morning — in the Azores and Madeira this is how it is done, not a fallback.
The day, then two weeks
Five hours photographed as it happens, with portraits wherever the light is best. 200 retouched photographs arrive in a private gallery within two weeks.
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.
- Book accommodation that lets you stay one night longer, so the second morning is real.
- Bring a warm layer for sunrise at altitude — Pico do Arieiro is cold in the hour before the sun comes up.
- Wear shoes you can walk a trail in and carry the ceremony shoes; change at the spot.
- Write the vows on paper, not on a phone. Paper photographs; a lit screen does not.
- Allow for the drive and the parking, not just the distance: the car park at Pico do Arieiro fills before sunrise.
- If a place needs a ticket or authorisation, have it confirmed in writing before the date is fixed.
Book Elopement in your city
Available in 5 Portuguese cities and destinations. Choose yours.
About this session
What you gain by not having a schedule
- Starting from
- €900
- Duration
- 5 hours
- Edited photos
- 200
- Cities
- 5
An elopement is not a small wedding, it is a different shape of day. There is no receiving line, no seating plan and nobody waiting for you, which means the day can be arranged around where the light is rather than around when the caterer needs the room. That is worth more than it sounds: at a full wedding the photographer works in the gaps left by the schedule, and here there is no schedule to work around.
In practice that buys two things. The first is location: with five hours and no guests to move, a session can start at a clifftop at sunrise and finish somewhere else entirely, and Portugal is small enough that both are within an hour’s drive. The second is weather. An elopement can move by a day. In the Azores that is not a convenience, it is the only sensible way to book — one caldera is usually clear when the other is not, and being able to choose the morning is the whole difference.
Frequently asked questions about Elopement
Can we bring a few guests?
Up to about a dozen. Beyond that the day starts to need a schedule — transport, a meal, people waiting — and loses the freedom that makes an elopement worth doing. If the list keeps growing, the wedding coverage is the better fit.
Can we have the ceremony inside the Sintra palaces?
Professional photography inside Pena, Monserrate and the Castelo dos Mouros needs written authorisation from Parques de Sintra, with a fee; Quinta da Regaleira is a separate operator with its own. It is possible but it is planned first. The Serra itself — the forest roads above the village, in mist — needs nothing at all.
What if both mornings are bad?
Then the location changes rather than the date. In the Azores one crater lake is often clear when the other is not; in Madeira, Fanal only works in fog, so a grey day is the day to go there. Part of scouting is having that second place ready.
Does the photographer help with who officiates or what we say?
Not with the ceremony itself — that is yours. What we do is make sure it happens somewhere it can be heard and photographed: out of the wind, facing the light, with the celebrant and any guests standing where they will not block you.
Elopement, from €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.