France Wedding Photographer

I’ve photographed weddings all over France, from the Côte d’Azur and Nice to Cognac, Jonzac, the countryside around Bordeaux and some incredibly remote parts of the country.

And I still get excited every time another one lands in the diary.

There’s obviously a lot to love visually about a wedding in France, but that isn’t really what keeps drawing me back. For me, it’s the atmosphere.

Destination weddings have this brilliant feeling about them. Guests have travelled somewhere together, often made a holiday out of it, and by the time the wedding arrives everyone seems properly settled in and ready to enjoy themselves.

That matters to me because atmosphere, connection and what it actually felt like to be at the wedding are the things I’m most interested in photographing.

What I love about photographing weddings in France

Give me beautiful light and a great-looking venue and I can make photographs of the flowers, tables, cake and all the visual details pretty quickly.

Those things absolutely matter, and I photograph them properly. But they aren’t where most of my energy goes.

I’m looking for the things you can’t really put on a mood board.

The anticipation before the ceremony. The way someone looks at you when they haven’t seen you for months. A table of friends getting louder as dinner carries on. Someone completely losing it during a speech. That feeling when everybody realises the formal part of the day is finished and the party is properly starting.

Those are the photographs I want couples to feel when they look back at their wedding.

Documentary wedding photography with an editorial edge

My style sits somewhere between documentary and editorial wedding photography.

Most of the day is about watching rather than directing. I blend into the wedding, get to know people and photograph what develops naturally around me. I don’t want to stand on the outside of your wedding looking in. I want to be amongst it.

When something benefits from a little guidance, particularly portraits, I’ll give it. But I’m not interested in turning a wedding in France into an eight-hour photoshoot.

That approach works particularly well at destination weddings because there’s often so much energy already there. I don’t need to manufacture it.

You can see more about that approach on my natural wedding photography page.

An experienced destination wedding photographer in France

One of the things I want couples to feel when they book me for a wedding in France is that the travel side of it isn’t something they need to worry about.

I’ve done this a lot.

I know France well. I’m comfortable driving around the country, dealing with toll roads, getting between airports and venues, working with French and international suppliers and fitting into destination wedding weekends.

I also don’t fly in the night before a wedding and hope everything works out. I normally arrive in France two or three days beforehand. It gives me breathing room if anything unexpected happens with travel, and means that by the wedding morning I’m rested, settled and completely ready to work.

I travel light too. I carry the professional cameras and backup equipment I need, but I’m not arriving with an enormous production following me around all day. The way I photograph weddings doesn’t need it.

And importantly, there are no additional travel charges added onto my France wedding photography packages.

A two-day wedding at Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat

One wedding I definitely couldn’t leave off this page was a two-day celebration I photographed at Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat, A Four Seasons Hotel on the Côte d’Azur.

It’s one of the most luxurious wedding venues I’ve ever had the privilege of photographing, and being trusted to document a wedding there for such brilliant people was incredibly special.

This was a proper destination celebration rather than simply turning up for a few hours on the wedding day. Photographing two days gave me time to properly get to know people and understand the relationships between everyone. By the time the main wedding arrived, I wasn’t photographing a room full of strangers anymore.

I worked alongside Lucy Wright Events, a UK and destination wedding planner. Having a really good planner involved makes such a difference on weddings like this. Everyone understands the plan, the couple can actually enjoy themselves, and I can concentrate on what I’m there to do rather than worrying about logistics.

One of my favourite photographs from that wedding is the image of the couple with the red confetti smoke exploding behind them. It has exactly the sort of energy I mean when I talk about photographs you can actually feel.

The light in France

I’ve photographed enough weddings in France now to know how much of a difference understanding the light can make.

In areas around Bordeaux and Cognac particularly, the flatter landscape can give you these incredibly long sunsets and really soft, low evening light.

I don’t want to drag a couple away for an hour waiting for it, though. Often all I need is five or ten minutes at the right point in the evening.

That’s why experience matters. It’s about knowing when to leave everything alone because the light will improve in twenty minutes, when to grab a couple for a quick walk, and when the best photograph is actually the candid moment happening behind you rather than the sunset in front of you.

French weddings can have a different rhythm

I’ve photographed plenty of weddings in France for British and American couples, as well as weddings for French couples themselves.

Some of the French weddings I’ve covered have had a slightly different rhythm to a typical UK wedding. I’ve photographed midday ceremonies followed by long relaxed celebrations, with a break later in the day before everyone comes back together for the evening.

I really like that.

People get time to talk, eat, have a drink and actually enjoy where they are rather than racing through a rigid timeline. Then everyone gets a second wind before the party.

It also gives me far more opportunity to photograph the people rather than simply jumping from one scheduled event to the next.

A private wedding at Château de Mailly

One wedding that really sticks in my mind was Theo and Rebecca’s at Château de Mailly in Mailly-le-Château.

They were a New York couple with French connections, and the wedding was right out in the French countryside.

What made it particularly interesting was that this wasn’t a venue operating like a traditional wedding business. The château belonged to a friend of a friend, and they were able to turn this beautiful private estate into somewhere incredibly personal for their wedding.

There were guests from different countries and cultures all coming together in the middle of rural France, and that’s exactly the sort of environment I love photographing.

You can’t really manufacture photographs from a wedding like that. You just need to understand people, be present and recognise the moments as they’re happening.

Weddings in Cognac

Cognac has become somewhere I genuinely love working.

One of the weddings that really started that was at No.3 The Chateau. It’s where I first worked with Julia Hatton from Chatelaine Events, and we clicked immediately.

When you have a planner and photographer who communicate well and want the same thing for the couple, the whole day becomes easier. That relationship has continued through other weddings in France, and Julia is now somebody I always look forward to working alongside.

I’ve also built a great connection with the team at No.3 The Chateau, who now recommend me as a photographer.

You can see more from weddings at No.3 The Chateau here.

There’s also a beautiful church only a short distance away, and the venue has this brilliant old classic car that can take the couple down to it. Watching the car arrive outside the church with everyone waiting is exactly the sort of thing I love photographing.

A recent wedding at La Cannonerie

More recently I photographed Anne-Sophie and Clément’s wedding at La Cannonerie near Cognac.

They actually own the venue themselves, which made photographing their wedding particularly special. After spending a full wedding day there, I got to know how the light moves around the grounds, how easily guests move between the different spaces and just how good the venue is for the sort of natural wedding photography I love.

You can see more on my La Cannonerie Wedding Photographer page.

French wedding dinners and parties

This might be another reason destination weddings suit the way I work so much.

People are there to enjoy themselves.

Long tables outside, candlelight, speeches running into dinner, everyone having another glass of wine, then eventually moving onto the dance floor. There’s time for the atmosphere to build rather than having to force it.

That gives me layers of photographs. The beautiful wide picture of the dinner setup matters, but so does the guest leaning across the table to toast somebody, the bride wiping away a tear and what happens when the dance floor gets messy later on.

A couple shoot on the Côte d’Azur

Not all of my photography in France has been on wedding days either.

I once photographed a couple’s wedding in Italy. They later asked me to photograph their wedding in New York, but unfortunately I wasn’t available.

When they came to the Côte d’Azur for their honeymoon, they got back in touch. They knew I worked regularly in France and asked me to fly out to Nice to photograph the two of them there instead.

It ended up being just me and the couple on the coast, climbing across the rocks in this incredible evening light.

You can see that full destination couple shoot in France here.

From the Côte d’Azur to the French countryside

That’s one of the other things I love about working in France. No two weddings need to look remotely alike.

I’ve worked around Nice and the Côte d’Azur, in Cognac, Jonzac, the Bordeaux region and tiny villages where you can drive for miles without seeing another wedding venue.

There are grand châteaux, vineyards, private family estates, beautiful churches, coastal locations and countryside venues where the whole wedding can happen outdoors.

If you’re still deciding where to hold your wedding, my guide to wedding venues in France is a useful place to continue.

Looking for a wedding photographer in France?

If you’ve found this page because you’re planning a wedding in France, the main thing I’d want you to take away isn’t simply that I’ve photographed beautiful French venues.

It’s that I’ve done this enough times to understand how these weddings work.

I understand the travel. I know how to arrive prepared. I know how to work alongside planners and suppliers. I understand how good the evening light can become and, importantly, when not to interrupt the wedding just because there’s a photograph I could manufacture somewhere else.

I don’t take myself too seriously, but I take photographing a wedding incredibly seriously.

My aim is to give you photographs with atmosphere. Photographs of the people you love actually being themselves. Photographs that look beautiful, obviously, but more importantly photographs that bring back the energy, anticipation, laughter and emotion of being there.

You can see more of my work as a destination wedding photographer.