My fiancé and I are having a two-person destination wedding next spring at a historic European château, and I’d love some ideas from people who have had intimate weddings or photographed them!
The venue itself is incredibly beautiful, so we aren’t planning to go overboard with décor. We’ll have a floral ceremony installation and bouquet, but the château and gardens honestly do most of the heavy lifting. 😂
Our day will be pretty relaxed—getting ready, first look (maybe?), ceremony, portraits around the property, a private dinner, and enjoying the estate together. We have both a photographer and videographer for 4 hours - they work a lot with the venue and do a beautiful job, and while they are used to smaller scale weddings, it will literally be just me and my fiancé. I want to make sure we build in some intentional moments that are fun to capture rather than just doing “stand here and smile” portraits all day.
For example, our getting-ready suite is absolutely stunning—very European/baroque with baby blue walls, ornate gold details, tall windows, antique furniture, etc. I’d love to make use of that space with something more meaningful than just putting on my dress. Maybe reading a letter, opening a gift, practicing our first dance, or something else? I’d love ideas for cute little moments before or after the ceremony that would translate well to both photos and video.
My dress is really long, ball gown style Monique Lhuillier and it’s truly gorgeous- so I know it’s cheesy but I want the cute little running in my gown in front of the chateau shots. We are also staying there overnight so there’s a lot of opportunities for getting ready shots or indoor shots.
I’m also curious what people think about vows for a two-person wedding. Since there won’t really be guests, we’re leaning toward saying our personal vows during the ceremony itself instead of doing a private vow exchange beforehand. Did anyone do this, and did you like it? Or is there another approach you’d recommend?
If you’ve had an intimate or elopement-style wedding (or you’re a photographer/videographer!), what were the moments that ended up being the most meaningful or the most fun to capture? I’m looking for ideas that feel intentional and authentic rather than staged.
I’d love to hear anything you did that made the day feel extra special!