Multi-day weddings, far-from-home celebrations, and elopements photographed with the same calm, honest approach wherever the road begins.
Rebuilt July 2026.
Jump straight to the question you are trying to answer. The full guide remains below for anyone who wants every detail.
I live in Plettenberg Bay, on the South African Garden Route, and a fair amount of my year is spent a long way from it. Iceland mostly. Norway, Ireland and Germany when somebody asks. I have photographed weddings that took three flights to get to and weddings twenty minutes from my front door, and the good ones have almost nothing to do with which.
If you are planning a wedding somewhere that is not home, either for you or for most of the people coming, this is the page for you. If it is just the two of you, that is an elopement and I do those too, but the page you want is over here.
A destination wedding photographer is someone you fly in, rather than someone who already lives where you are getting married. That is the whole definition. It usually means the photographer arrives at least a day early, scouts in person rather than from a map, handles their own travel and accommodation, and stays for longer than a local would because there is a rehearsal dinner on one night and a long slow breakfast on the other.
The practical difference is preparation. When I shoot in Plettenberg Bay I know which beach turns into a wind tunnel in November. When I shoot somewhere new I have to earn that, which means arriving early, walking the locations at the same hour your ceremony is, and having a second and third option for weather I have not lived with for ten years.
The other thing worth saying plainly: hiring someone who has to travel is not automatically more complicated than hiring locally. It is one more set of flights and one more room. Everything else, the scouting, the timeline, the backup plan, is work I would be doing anyway.
Six places I know well enough to be useful in, rather than a world map with pins in it. Each one has its own page with the locations, the seasons and the couples I have photographed there.
Iceland is where most of this started and it is still where I spend the most time. Black sand at Reynisfjara, the ice cave at Katla, the canyon at Mulagljufur, Jokulsarlon, the waterfalls in the south, the highlands when the road opens. I have photographed elopements, vow renewals and two day trips that crossed the south and the east. If you are considering Iceland, start on the Iceland page, it is the most detailed thing on this site.
Maggie and Jon flew me to Norway for their wedding and it remains one of the best weeks of my working life. A first look by the water with the wind doing its best, a canoe, a ceremony in a language I do not speak where you could tell exactly what was happening from the crying, traditional Norwegian dress, the table kissing tradition, and a sparkler tunnel in light drizzle. The hikes alone would have been worth the flight.
Nicole and Andre eloped at Dunseverick Castle on the north coast, which is the kind of place that does not need anything added to it. Ireland is a short hop from most of Europe and the light does something in the late afternoon that I have not seen anywhere else at that latitude.
About half the weddings I photograph here are destination weddings for somebody. Ben and Richard got married at Belle Balance in the Plett Game Reserve in July: Richard grew up in South Africa, Ben lives in the UK, and the guests came from both. That is a destination wedding by any definition, it just happens to be twenty minutes from my house.
Plettenberg Bay, Knysna, Cape St Francis, the forests behind them and Robberg running out into the sea at the end of my own bay. If you are flying a wedding party into South Africa I am the least complicated photographer you can book, because I am already here, and I can tell you which venues lose the light at four and which ones are worth the extra drive.
This is the part most photographers leave off their websites and it is the part couples actually want.
I travel at my own arrangement. You do not book my flights, find my accommodation or work out how I get from the airport to the village. I do that, and it is quoted as one number with the photography so there is nothing to reconcile afterwards.
I arrive early. Not on the morning of. Early enough to walk the locations at the hour you will be standing in them, meet whoever is running the day, and find the second option for when the weather does what it was always going to do.
I stay longer than a local would. If there is a welcome dinner the night before and a swim the morning after, those are usually the frames you end up loving most, and I am already there.
These are two different days and I price and plan them differently.
A destination wedding has guests. There is a venue, a running order, a dinner, speeches, people who flew in and want something to do on the Thursday. It is usually two days of photography and sometimes three, and a lot of my job is knowing where everyone needs to be without being the person telling them.
An elopement is the two of you and maybe a witness or two. No seating chart, no timeline built around a kitchen, and the day bends around the light instead. If that is what you are picturing, the elopements page is the one to read, and if you already know the country, go straight to that country’s page.
Five real ones, with the full stories:
Send me the country, the rough date and how many people are coming. If I am free I will tell you straight away, and if I am not I will tell you that too. Please allow 48 hours for a reply, I am often in a place with worse signal than this website suggests.
Check your date with me → /wedding-enquiry/
Somebody you fly in rather than somebody who already lives where you are getting married. In practice it means the photographer arranges their own travel and accommodation, arrives at least a day before the wedding to scout the locations in person, and usually stays for the days either side rather than just the wedding day itself. I live in Plettenberg Bay in South Africa and I travel from there.
Honestly, it depends more on the country and the guest count than on anything else, and I am not the right person to give you a total. What I can tell you is what moves the photography part of it: how many days you want me there, whether it is one location or several, how far apart they are, and how much travel and accommodation sits at my end. A two day wedding in Norway and a two day wedding on the Garden Route are not the same number, and neither is a one location day and a three location day in the same country. Tell me the shape of it and I will tell you the number.
Yes, and it is a large part of what I do. I am based in Plettenberg Bay in South Africa and I have photographed weddings and elopements in Iceland, Norway, Ireland and Germany, plus portrait work in Namibia and Dubai. If your country is not on that list, ask anyway.
Longer than you probably think. I arrive at least a full day before, usually two, so that I have walked your locations at the same hour you will be standing in them. I stay for the day after where it makes sense, because the breakfast and the swim the next morning are often the frames people love most. For a wedding with events on either side I would normally be in the country for three to four days.
No, and in my experience it is often the wrong instinct. A local photographer knows the light and the roads, which matters. But they also arrive on the morning of the wedding having never met you, and they leave when the dancing starts. Someone who travels to you has already spent a day scouting, has already worked out the backup plan, and has planned their week around your wedding rather than fitting it between two others. I am not local to anywhere except the Garden Route, which means I am in exactly the same position as you are: not from there, going anyway, and organised about it.
You do not need a finished plan. Send the date or season, the place if you know it, and what you want the day to feel like.
Send me the country, the rough date, and how many people are coming. I will reply personally and tell you what travelling there would involve.
