There's something pretty special about asking your favourite people to pack a suitcase, jump on a plane and meet you somewhere completely different for your wedding.
I've been lucky enough to travel quite a lot through my work as a wedding filmmaker, and some of my favourite experiences have come from filming destination weddings across Europe.
I've now filmed weddings in Italy, France & Greece, as well as weddings here in the UK for couples travelling over from America, and I've realised that destination weddings have a completely different energy to weddings closer to home.
Everyone has made an effort to be there.
People arrive a few days early. Friends and family who might normally only meet on the wedding day are suddenly having dinner together the night before. There's usually a pool, a bar or a beautiful little town nearby, and before long the wedding starts feeling more like a holiday with everyone you love.
From a filmmaking perspective, that's pretty hard to beat.
The incredible locations obviously help, but what interests me most is everything happening within them.
Because ultimately, Europe gives us the backdrop.
The people you bring with you give us the story.
One of the things I love about Europe is how completely different a wedding can feel after travelling for only a couple of hours.
Italy, France and Greece aren't interchangeable destination-wedding backdrops. They each have their own architecture, landscapes, food, traditions, light and atmosphere.
And I think that's something worth embracing.
If you're travelling all the way to another country to get married, let that place become part of the wedding.
Have dinner outside.
Walk through the town.
Eat the local food.
Take everyone on a boat.
Watch the sun disappear.
Stay at the bar considerably later than you planned.
You don't need every minute of the trip scheduled.
Some of my favourite footage from destination weddings comes from the moments surrounding the actual wedding rather than anything written on the timeline.
And when those moments eventually sit alongside your vows, speeches and ceremony in the final film, you end up with something that captures far more than a single day.
Italy is one of those places where I completely understand why so many couples choose to get married abroad.
It just works.
The old streets, architecture, food, countryside and warm evenings give everything an atmosphere that's difficult to manufacture somewhere else.
When I travelled to Italy to film a wedding, one of the things I loved most was being able to capture everything happening around the celebration.
Not just the obvious beautiful shots.
Guests walking through the streets. People sitting outside together. Food arriving. Conversations over dinner. Little details around the venue. The landscape and architecture surrounding everyone.
Individually they're tiny moments.
But put them together and suddenly the film couldn't have been made anywhere else.
That's something I really try to achieve with destination wedding films.
If you've chosen Italy, I want your wedding film to feel like Italy!
I still want the vows, speeches, nerves, laughter and people to drive the story - but everything around them should constantly remind you where you all were.
If you're planning your own Italian wedding, you can also find out more about my approach to destination wedding videography across Europe.
France has a completely different character.
There's obviously the incredible châteaux and countryside estates, but then you head further south and suddenly everything changes again.
Old towns, Mediterranean coastline, beautiful architecture, outdoor dinners and that warm evening light all make it an incredible place to have a camera in your hands.
What I particularly like about filming weddings in France is the amount of character you can find beyond the obvious locations.
Give me an old building, slightly imperfect stonework, a little street or an overgrown garden over somewhere perfectly polished any day.
Those little details are what help me build the world around the wedding.
But as with every destination I film, I never want the location to become more important than the people.
A beautiful French château looks incredible on film.
Your dad trying not to cry when he sees you that morning will probably mean considerably more in twenty years.
My job is to capture both.
And then there's Greece.
From a purely visual perspective, it's difficult not to get excited about filming somewhere like this.
The Mediterranean, incredible light, white buildings, mountains, coastline and sunsets give you a ridiculous amount to work with before the wedding has even started.
But some of the moments I love most are much simpler.
Everyone sitting together outside.
People who've travelled from completely different places suddenly sharing a table.
Speeches happening as the light changes.
Music starting.
And that point later in the evening when everyone completely forgets there's someone standing nearby with a camera.
That's when things get interesting.
The big establishing shots of Greece might be what initially grab your attention, but the small human moments are what give those shots meaning.
That's the balance I'm always looking for when I create a destination wedding film.
I've also been lucky enough to film weddings for American couples who've travelled across the Atlantic to get married here in the UK.
That includes a wedding in London and another at Clevedon Hall, and it's given me experience of working with couples who aren't planning their wedding from just down the road.
And honestly, it doesn't need to make things complicated.
Most of our communication can happen remotely before you travel. We can talk over video calls and email, and if you're working with a destination wedding planner, I'm more than happy to work directly with them too.
There's also an advantage to hiring suppliers who are already based this side of the Atlantic.
I'm based in the UK, which puts Italy, France, Greece and a huge amount of Europe within relatively easy reach.
So if you're sitting in New York, California, Texas, or anywhere else in the US planning a wedding somewhere in Europe, there's absolutely no problem booking me from America.
You don't need to fly your entire wedding team across the Atlantic.
I'll meet you there.
One of the biggest differences I've noticed with destination weddings is that the wedding often isn't really one day.
Everyone has travelled too far for that.
There might be welcome drinks when everyone arrives, dinner the night before, a boat trip, pool party, the wedding itself and then something considerably more relaxed the following day.
And from my perspective, that's gold.
Those extra events allow me to capture people before the formality of the wedding begins.
By the time the ceremony happens, we've already got footage of your friends laughing together, your families spending time with each other and everyone actually experiencing the place you've brought them to.
It gives the final film context.
Rather than starting with everyone dressed beautifully and sitting in rows waiting for a ceremony, we can actually tell the story of everyone arriving and the celebration building around you.
So if you're planning more than one day, it's always worth talking to me about it.
Sometimes the moments you didn't think needed filming end up being the ones you're happiest somebody captured.
If you're getting married in Italy, I want to see Italy.
If you're getting married in France, I want to see France.
If you're standing on a Greek island overlooking the Mediterranean, I'm probably going to point a camera at it.
It sounds obvious, but I think there's an important difference between filming a wedding that happens to be abroad and creating a film that actually captures the experience of getting married there.
I'll look for establishing shots of the landscape and venue, but I'll also capture the smaller details.
The streets.
Food.
Signs.
Buildings.
People arriving.
Sounds.
Weather.
Whatever gives that particular place its identity.
Those shots become little pieces of punctuation throughout the film.
They remind you that this wasn't just another Saturday at home.
You brought everyone somewhere.
And years later, I want the film to be able to take you back there.
If you're currently looking for a filmmaker for your European wedding, I'd always recommend watching more than somebody's Instagram reels.
Watch their actual wedding films.
Listen to how they use vows and speeches.
Look at how much of the couple's friends and family appear.
Look at what happens outside of the perfectly staged couple shots.
And probably most importantly, ask yourself whether you'd actually feel comfortable having that person around you for one of the biggest weekends of your life.
Destination weddings can mean spending considerably more time together than we would at a normal UK wedding.
I don't want you feeling like you've hired a production crew.
My approach is deliberately relaxed.
I'll step in when a little direction will make something look better, but for most of the celebration I want you to forget I'm there.
Enjoy the place.
Enjoy your people.
I'll worry about capturing it.
Every European wedding I've filmed has been completely different, and that's probably why I enjoy them so much.
Italy doesn't look or feel like France.
France doesn't feel like Greece.
And wherever I travel next will bring something completely different again.
That's exactly how I want it.
I've created a dedicated page bringing together more of my destination wedding work, my approach to travelling for weddings and information for couples planning their celebration from overseas.
If you're currently searching for a destination wedding videographer in Europe, you can explore that here.
If you're bringing your favourite people together somewhere in Europe and you've stumbled across my films while looking for a videographer, I'd love to hear what you've got planned.
It doesn't matter whether you're getting married somewhere I've already filmed or somewhere completely new.
Italy.
France.
Greece.
Or somewhere that gives me a good excuse to get on a plane.
Tell me where you're going, what you've got planned and a little bit about the two of you.
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