Elopement Photography in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

Matt & Kiara in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

Kiara and Matt came all the way from the border between Delaware and Maryland to tie the knot in Puerto Rico. As fate would have it, they had one of the most laid-back, relaxed and chill weddings of which I’ve ever been part. My team and I documented the most important four hours of their choosing and things flowed so smoothly. I did, however, feel as though we were missing one of my favorite parts of an entire wedding: the bride and groom session.

As a token of my appreciation, I took these two lovebirds to one of my favorite spots for probably any photographer in Puerto Rico: Old San Juan. This city boasts such a great amount of cool spots for pictures that you really can’t go wrong anywhere. I asked them to meet me in the morning, something that I’ve never done before, and they didn’t disappoint. I typically shoot during a wedding here when brides and grooms want to do their ‘first look’ here or, at the very least in the afternoons with other couples, but a morning session wasn’t all that bad!

Swoon!

We were so blessed to have such amazing weather this day. Don’t get me wrong: scorching hot days aren’t always the easiest in which to shoot because you’re seemingly wiping your brow every two seconds but I think it’s safe to say we’d prefer that any day over torrential rain pour. One of the many reasons as to why I wanted to gift Kiara and Matt is due to the fact that we always have to adhere to tight windows of opportunity during a wedding day. A ‘love story’ session by a professional photographer is a key element to great nuptials in Puerto Rico. It allows us for a higher volume, creativity and a stress-free environment to allow for the couple to be themselves.

The rules were simple: no huge amounts of time were to be invested in posing. I did my best to remain ‘in the shadows’ because my theme for the session was to just let them be themselves and remain at a safe distance the entire time. I did stop them every now and then because I thought to myself that ‘this’ and ‘that’ would make for a great backdrop (as evidenced by some of the pictures attached). I feel like I’m gravitating to a more personalized approach to my photography and a lot less clinical and/or staged. This was the perfect demonstration of what ‘The Escapade’ can be: just two souls looking to get away and have the process documented in the most organic way possible.

Sweet embrace…

I firmly believe that by allowing your couples to let loose and not adhere to a posing guide or even prompts, it gives them the opportunity to go with the flow and do what comes natural. At the end of the day that’s what I want to accomplish as a Puerto Rico wedding photographer: to document love as it’s naturally occuring. That’s just the thing: I told them when we started that my hopes for this session would be to photographer romance and intimacy. It takes a great deal of effort to convince your couple (let alone anyone) to open themselves up to you to showcase their affection like this.

I don’t take this for granted and that’s why I wanted to go above and beyond for Kiara and Matt as their wedding photographer in Puerto Rico. They travel from afar and, although Kiara has roots here, Matt doesn’t and I wanted him to feel like he’s home away from home. The only way I could do that was to have a conversation (albeit through texts the night before) and do a play-by-play of what my vision was for this engagement session in Old San Juan. I’m happy they were all in on my idea because I think these turned out great with a different style of filmic editing that I’m putting together moving forward.

By your side the rest of the way…

Mine…