Tuscany, Italy
Destination Wedding photography in Tuscany
A villa taken for a week, and the longest golden hour in Europe.
The Tuscan destination wedding is the one format on this site where the photography genuinely improves because of the accommodation. The villa is taken for the week, the guests sleep in it, and by Saturday everyone in your wedding has already eaten three dinners together. People who have spent four days in a house together are photographed differently from people who met in a car park an hour ago, and no amount of technique substitutes for it.
What the landscape then contributes is the longest usable golden hour in Europe. The hills are open and nothing is tall enough to block the sun before it reaches the horizon, so the light goes amber and stays amber for well over an hour — roughly three times what a wedding in a wooded valley gets. We plan the portrait walk to start when most schedules have it finishing, and the set that comes back from that hour is the reason people choose this region over the coast.
The light
Choosing a month in Tuscany.
May to June
Green wheat, poppies, and warm days without the August heat. The prettiest the landscape gets.
July to August
Hot and dry, the hills gone gold and stubbled, and the light hard until six. The evenings are enormous.
September to October
Harvest, softening light, cool mornings and mist in the valleys at dawn. The photographer’s season.
What has to be planned for
- Many estates are reached by unpaved white roads. They are slow, they are dusty in August, and a coach on one takes considerably longer than a car.
- Renting the villa for the week is the norm and it is what makes the weekend commission worth taking here.
- Midday in July and August is genuinely hot and open shade is scarce in an olive grove. Ceremony timing matters.
- Civil ceremonies are conducted at the comune and often in a different town from the reception; the transfer between them is a fixed cost in the schedule.
The commission
- Coverage
- Two photographers, on site two days early, for the whole of the wedding day.
- From
- $22,000
Frames
From Tuscany.
Questions
How much does a Tuscany wedding photographer cost?
From $22,000 for a destination wedding: two photographers, two days on site beforehand, full coverage of the day. A wedding weekend covering the welcome dinner and the farewell lunch as well starts at $28,000. Travel is quoted at cost on top.
Is the week-long villa really necessary?
Not necessary, and it is what Tuscany is for. It changes the photographs more than any equipment decision we could make, because it changes how the people in them behave.
When is the best month?
Late May and early June for green wheat and poppies; late September for harvest, softer light and mist in the valleys at dawn. July and August are hot and dry, the hills have gone gold and stubbled, and the evenings are enormous.
What time should the ceremony be?
Late enough that the portrait walk starts when most schedules have it finishing. In July that usually means a six o’clock ceremony; in late September, five. The light here does not fade, it turns — and then keeps going for an hour.
How do the roads affect the day?
Many estates are reached by unpaved white roads. They are slow, they are dusty in August, and a coach on one takes considerably longer than a car. Where the civil ceremony is at a comune in another town, that transfer is a fixed cost in the schedule.
Can you photograph in the cellars?
Usually, and it is worth arranging with the estate in advance. A barrel room is the one cold dark still space on a hot gold day, and the change of register is what stops a Tuscan set looking like every other Tuscan set.
Destination Wedding in Tuscany?
Tell us the date and what you are planning. We reply personally, usually within two business days.