Some couples don't want the venue down the road. They want a place that means something — a country they fell in love in, a coastline they've always dreamed of, a city whose light they can't stop thinking about. As a Newcastle wedding photographer, I spend most of my year on the Australian coast — but the weddings I remember most are the ones that took a plane to reach. These are nine of them: real-wedding-style features from nine of the most cinematic places on earth to marry, each with its own couple, its own light, and its own story.
Feature · Destinations
Destination Weddings
Nine cinematic locations for a wedding abroad — from alpine lakes to sacred forests
2 October 2026 12 min read
01 · New ZealandLake Wakatipu · Queenstown · South Island
New Zealand
Aroha & Liam
Golden-hour mist · alpine reflection · soft breaking cloud
Aroha grew up on the Otago coast and Liam came down from Christchurch, so when it came to choosing where to marry, the South Island chose itself. They wanted mountains, real mountains — the kind that make you feel small in the best way — and Lake Wakatipu gave them that in spades.
We started before sunrise, when the mist was still sitting on the water and the Remarkables were just a silhouette. Aroha's ivory silk gown caught the first light as it broke through the cloud, and for a few minutes the whole lake turned gold. There were maybe forty people there — family, a handful of close friends, and a celebrant who'd known Aroha since she was born. Liam cried before she'd even reached him.
The thing about New Zealand is that the landscape does the heavy lifting. You don't need to dress a set or chase a backdrop — you just turn around and there it is. We shot portraits on the shoreline for an hour and never moved more than fifty metres. By the time the reception started at a lakeside lodge, the light had gone soft and pink behind the peaks, and the whole day felt like it had been lit by someone else.
If you're thinking of bringing your people here, do it. The flight is long, but the photographs are worth every hour of it.
02 · SantoriniOia · Cyclades · Greece
Santorini
Elena & Nikos
Liquid golden sunset · caldera cliff · bougainvillea
Elena is Athenian and Nikos grew up in a fishing village on the caldera, so Santorini was never really a question — it was just where the two of them met in the middle. They married in Oia, on a whitewashed terrace that dropped straight into the Aegean, with thirty guests who'd flown from three different countries.
The light in Santorini is unlike anywhere I've worked. It's harsh and bright and blue all day, and then for about forty minutes it turns completely liquid. We timed the ceremony for late afternoon so the golden hour would land during portraits, and it did — the whole west side of the island caught fire while Elena and Nikos stood on the cliff edge with the sea a thousand feet below.
Elena wore a minimalist white slip and carried a single sprig of bougainvillea. Nikos was in linen, no tie, shoes off by the end. The reception was a long table on the terrace, candles in old bottles, and a playlist that ran until the last ferry. What I love about shooting here is that the architecture is so stark and white that the couple becomes the only colour in the frame. Every image feels like a film still.
Santorini rewards couples who plan around the sun. Get the timing right and you'll have a gallery that looks like it belongs in a magazine.
03 · ParisPont des Arts · Île Saint-Louis · France
Paris
Camille & Hugo
Soft overcast spring morning · mist on the Seine · blossom
Camille and Hugo met at the Sorbonne and never left the Left Bank, so when they married it had to be Paris — not the postcard Paris, but their Paris, the one they'd walked through a thousand times on the way to somewhere else.
We started at dawn on the Pont des Arts, when the river was still misty and the Eiffel Tower was just catching the first light. There was no one else around. Camille wore a lace sheath and carried peonies, and Hugo kept laughing because he couldn't believe they were doing this at six in the morning. The ceremony was small — twenty people in a mairie on the Île Saint-Louis — and then we spent the whole day walking the city with them, shooting on bridges, in doorways, under chestnut trees that were just coming into bloom.
Paris is a city that's been photographed to death, so the trick is to shoot it like you live there, not like you're a tourist. We avoided every obvious angle and found the in-between moments instead — a kiss in a passing doorway, her veil caught in a breeze on the quay, the two of them sharing a coffee on a bench while the city woke up around them.
If you're planning a Paris wedding, my advice is to keep it small and walkable. The best images of this city aren't posed — they're found.
04 · IstanbulKaraköy · Bosphorus · Türkiye
Istanbul
Defne & Emir
Warm amber evening · minaret silhouette · lantern glow
Defne and Emir married at golden hour with one foot in Europe and one in Asia, which felt about right for a couple whose families came from both sides of the Bosphorus. The ceremony was in a small Ottoman mosque in Karaköy, and then we took a boat across the water at sunset to shoot portraits with the whole skyline behind them — Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Galata Tower, all of it turning gold as the light dropped.
Istanbul is a city of layers, and that's what makes it extraordinary to photograph. You've got Byzantine stone underneath Ottoman domes underneath a modern metropolis of twenty million people, and somehow it all holds together. Defne wore an ivory gown with subtle gold embroidery that caught the evening light, and Emir was in deep emerald velvet — a nod to his grandmother, he told me. The reception was in a rooftop venue in Beyoğlu, with hanging lanterns and a view of the bridges lit up across the water.
What I love about Istanbul is that it never gives you a clean frame. There's always something in the way — a minaret, a seagull, a ferry, a dome — and that density is what makes the images feel alive. You can't shoot it minimal, and you shouldn't try.
For couples who want a wedding that feels like it belongs to a crossroads of the world, there's nowhere else like it.
05 · IcelandReynisfjara · Vík · South Coast
Iceland
Sigrid & Magnus
Moody overcast · basalt sea stacks · breaking cloud
Sigrid and Magnus wanted the opposite of a beach wedding. They wanted the edge of the world — black sand, a churning grey sea, basalt columns rising out of the surf, and a sky that couldn't decide what it was doing. So we went to Reynisfjara.
The light in Iceland doesn't behave like anywhere else. It's diffuse, cool, and dramatic all at once, and on the day we shot, the clouds broke for about ten minutes and let through this single shaft of warm light that hit the sea stacks and turned them copper. Sigrid's structured ivory gown stood out against the black sand like a single brushstroke, and Magnus's charcoal overcoat matched the basalt. There were twelve guests, a celebrant, and a lot of wind.
We shot for two hours and the weather changed four times. That's Iceland — you dress for it, you lean into it, and you never fight it. The images we got were some of the most cinematic I've ever taken: moody, vast, and unmistakably nowhere else on earth.
After the ceremony we drove to a turf-roofed cabin for a reception that ran until two in the morning, because in summer the light never really dies here. If you're the kind of couple who'd rather have a waterfall than a ballroom, Iceland is the place. Just bring layers, and trust the weather to do its thing.
06 · Bora BoraMount Otemanu · French Polynesia
Bora Bora
Vaihere & Tane
Bright tropical midday · turquoise lagoon · palm fronds
Vaihere and Tane flew their thirty closest people halfway across the Pacific for a week, because they didn't want a wedding day — they wanted a wedding week. They married on the private deck of an overwater bungalow in Bora Bora, with Mount Otemanu rising out of the lagoon behind them and the water so clear you could count the fish.
The light in French Polynesia is bright, honest, and tropical — no softbox needed. Vaihere wore a backless white gown and a crown of tropical flowers, and Tane was in crisp white linen, barefoot the whole day. The ceremony was short and the portraits were long, because every direction you point a camera here is a postcard. We shot on the deck, in the shallows, on a strip of sand that appeared and disappeared with the tide, and finally from a boat as the sun dropped behind the peak.
What I love about Bora Bora is that the colour does the work. The turquoise of that lagoon doesn't exist anywhere else, and it makes every image feel saturated without any editing at all. The reception was a long table on the beach, torches in the sand, and a Polynesian band that played until the last guests swam home.
It's not a cheap destination, but for couples who want their wedding to feel like the most beautiful week of their lives, there's nothing that compares.
07 · RomeColosseum · Forum · Italy
Rome
Giulia & Marco
Honeyed golden afternoon · umbrella pine · ancient stone
Giulia and Marco married in the shadow of two thousand years of stone, which is the kind of thing you can only do in Rome. The ceremony was in a small baroque chapel near the Forum, and then we walked — the whole wedding party, through the cobbled streets at golden hour — to shoot portraits on the ancient paving near the Colosseum.
Rome in the late afternoon is a photographer's dream. The stone goes honey-gold, the umbrella pines throw long shadows, and the light has a weight to it that you don't get anywhere else. Giulia wore a vintage silk crepe gown with a cathedral veil that caught the breeze and trailed behind her for metres, and Marco was in a classic black tuxedo. They looked like they'd stepped out of a Fellini film.
What makes Rome different is that the history isn't a backdrop — it's a co-star. Every frame has the Colosseum, or the Forum, or a two-thousand-year-old arch in it, and the contrast between the ancient stone and a couple in love is what gives the images their weight. The reception was in a rooftop venue in Monti, with the domes of the city lit up below.
For couples who want a wedding that feels like it belongs to the eternal city, Rome delivers something no other destination can — the sense that your day is part of something much, much older than you.
08 · New YorkTimes Square · Midtown Manhattan · USA
New York
Maya & James
Neon dusk · rain-slicked pavement · billboard bokeh
Maya and James wanted the opposite of a quiet wedding. They wanted New York at its loudest, brightest, and most alive — so we went to Times Square at dusk, the moment the billboards ignite but the sky still holds a sliver of blue.
The light in Times Square doesn't come from the sun. It comes from a thousand screens — amber, cyan, magenta — and it spills across your subjects in soft, shifting colour washes that no softbox could ever reproduce. Maya wore a sleek architectural ivory gown with a cathedral veil that caught the neon glow, and James was in a sharp charcoal suit. We shot wide and low, the two of them centred and intimate against the towering LED canyon dissolving into bokeh behind them. A first kiss, a forehead-to-forehead, a quiet laugh — all of it framed by the most public square in the world.
What I love about shooting here is the paradox. You're making the most private promise a couple can make in the loudest place on earth, and for one frame the noise falls away and all that's left is the two of them lit up like a film. The rain-slicked pavement doubled the light into a mirror floor, and the whole image felt less like a wedding photo and more like a movie still.
After the portraits we slipped downtown to a rooftop in Tribeca for the reception, the skyline lit up behind the head table. For couples whose love story is a city story — the louder, the better — New York is the only backdrop that makes sense.
09 · TokyoMeiji Jingu · Shibuya · Japan
Tokyo
Yuki & Haruto
Dappled forest light · cedar canopy · reverent stillness
Yuki and Haruto married in the silence of the sacred forest, which is the most Tokyo thing you can do — step off one of the busiest streets in the world and into a hundred-year-old cedar grove where you can't hear the city at all. The ceremony was at Meiji Jingu, the shrine built for the Emperor and Empress, and it was quiet, formal, and deeply moving.
The light in the forest is filtered through the canopy — soft, dappled, green, and reverent. Yuki wore an elegant white gown and carried a small bouquet of white camellias, and Haruto was in a dark tailored suit. They walked together beneath the great wooden torii gate, which is exactly the kind of frame a photographer dreams about — massive, ancient, and perfectly proportioned. There were twenty guests, a Shinto priest, and a ceremony that lasted twenty minutes and felt like it lasted an hour.
After the shrine, we shot portraits in the forest and then in the nearby Yoyogi Park, where the city started to reappear at the edges. The reception was in a small restaurant in Omotesando, with a tasting menu and speeches that went long into the night.
What I love about Meiji Jingu is the contrast — the stillness of the shrine against the energy of the city that surrounds it. For couples who want a wedding that feels both ancient and completely modern, there's nowhere else like it.
What I tell couples
A destination wedding isn't a holiday with a ceremony attached — it's a decision to let a place become part of your story. The logistics are harder, the guest list is smaller, and the light is never what you expected. But the photographs are the ones you'll still be looking at in forty years, because they don't just show your day — they show a corner of the world that was yours for one afternoon.
Wherever you're thinking of — a caldera, a cathedral, a black sand beach — the same rule applies as it does at home: build the day around the light, trust the place, and let the weather do what it's going to do. The rest is just showing up.
Planning a destination wedding?
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Whether it's a caldera in the Aegean or a shrine in Tokyo, I travel for couples who want their wedding photographed like a film. Send me your destination and your date — no pressure, never spam.
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