Wedding in the Chateaux de Loire - Natasha and Thomas

I don’t usually shoot weddings as that is more of my wife’s thing - mostly the clearer distinction between our business identities. But I do occasionally photograph wedding sessions, elopements and civil ceremonies, and the odd pre-wedding. For those who don’t know the difference between all of the above - if you’re just getting photos in wedding attire, then it is a wedding session. If you’re doing a small destination wedding, then it falls on the elopement side as long as it’s a small party. Civil ceremonies is the legal sexy side of weddings…for those who want photos while they sign the wedding certificate. And finally, the pre-wedding sessions. These are the photos for the future wedding, so the couple just relaxes and doesn’t stress during the actual wedding day.

This post is more of the wedding session as Natasha and Thomas were already in their honeymoon and decided to bring along their wedding attire to Europe for some portraits inside of Paris, but also in two Chateaux in the Loire Valley.

First of all, this session is about two years old but I hold very dear as it is in my favorite area of France and it has the favorite chateau of mine - the gorgeous bridge castle of Chenonceau. It was also my first time shooting something on film and I took a couple of rolls of Fuji 400H since it is the film stock of choice for the film wedding photographer. It was the first and last time I would use Fuji as I prefer the warmer and non-green tones of Kodak Portra. By the way - there will only be 4 digital photos in this post, the rest are the scans from the Fuji 400H rolls.

If you are interested in taking photos in any of these properties, first of all call ahead to check if they still allow for wedding photography to take place and rent a car. Most chateaux in the Loire are about 30-45 minutes away from each other and the properties open around 9-10am. So, if you plan well like we did, you might be the first people to enter your preferred chateau and have a peaceful session. Yes, you might hear your photographer complaint that the starting time might be a little too late, so plan your shoot off summer. We did ours in early May before the summer tourism rush.

As for the Chateaux we visited, we started first and shot mostly at Chenonceau, followed by a quick 30 minutes at Chambord’s northern facade - the one surrounded by the moat. In fact, you can see the bridge of the moat in some of the shots and the moat itself. This was both a function of time and comfort as Natasha just wanted a few photos as a princess in the one french castle that looks straight out of Disney.