📷 Colin + Rachel / Photographing my own Elopement in Iceland
We got rather lucky with the weather for our Icelandic Elopement!
Back in July 2023 my partner and I eloped to Iceland and shot our own wedding photos…
It’s about high time I got back to blogging and after a busy start to the summer and taking a 3 week hiatus to go and get married I am finally back on it and hopefully, it will stay that way!
So, I got married! My wonderful wife and I took ourselves away to Iceland to elope by ourselves and then spent just over 2 weeks driving around the country in a camper van and generally having the most awesome time.
I’ll break the blog down into the most common questions we get asked by people and of course, throw in loads of photos of the elopement.
There will be another blog with the travel photos coming soon as well as a video that we shot during our trip.
Why elope to Iceland?
Well, that’s the main question we get asked, and when planning our wedding we always set out to do things exactly how we wanted to and pretty quickly came to the conclusion that eloping is how we’d like to do it.
We did plan an afterparty once we got back so we could still have that element of a wedding with our friends and family but for the wedding itself, we just wanted to focus on each other and spend time having an adventure.
We felt that this mix would allow us to do our own thing for the wedding while not feeling like we were leaving people out from celebrating with us.
Iceland is a place that I’m very fond of (this was my 5th trip there) and on our first date my wife and I got to talking about my past trips there and she was always keen to go. Once we settled on eloping we kind of naturally moved to going to Iceland due to its remote beauty and so I could share one of my favorite places with my favorite person.
Did you have anyone else involved?
No, we chose to do everything on our wedding day with just the 2 of us. This did mean a small legal ceremony beforehand just so it was all legal, but for us, this was a formality that allowed us to do exactly what we wanted on the day.
This also meant we didn’t have to plan timings or location with anyone else and could just relax and do things at our own pace.
How did the day go?
We chose to pick the Panorama Glass Lodge near Hella for the first part of our trip and had initially thought we would use that as a base to get married and then set off and do some wedding photos in a few different locations.
But when it came to it we just wanted to have the day in this awesome location and not be around any other people. The tourist sites get very buys and the idea of a bunch of people staring at us just wasn’t what we were going for.
The day started with getting ready and taking it in turn to take some photos of each other. We then took time to sit down write our wedding vows and finish getting ready.
I took some time to set up a camera to film our vows and take some photos and we exchanged vows just outside the cabin - no people, just us.
The rest of the day was spent drinking prosecco and eating Icelandic lamb that we had cooked the night before. We then got into the hot tub and just took time to take it all in before our road trip started the day afterwards.
What gear did you use?
I got myself a used Fuji X100T for the trip and used that camera for the majority of the shots. The simple nature of this camera is why I love it and it really is a fantastic little bit of kit to use.
The XH2 was used to film and set up some tripod shots of us both as well as a few portraits.
We swapped roles so as I was getting ready my wife was taking photos and vice-versa which meant we could document the day in a very personal and intimate way.
Would you recommend eloping to Iceland?
100% - I think a wedding should be whatever the couple getting married wants it to be, so if that’s a full wedding day with a big party then go for it.
If that’s the two of you in the remote wilderness of Iceland then you do you.
I’d say that if you are thinking of Iceland then it’s a stunning place to get married and then adventure round, we took 2 weeks after the wedding to explore and there will be a much longer blog post about or epic trip!
Thanks for reading and please let me know if you’ve got any questions below!
Cheers,
Col-
Looking for an Icelandic Elopement photographer?
Pop me a message as I’d love to chat about your plans, I can offer advice on locations as well as general Icelandic travel advice if you’re planning a wedding in Iceland.