Getting married in Normandy:
a guide for international couples

You'll be understood — in English.

The biggest worry for couples marrying abroad is language. I'm an English-speaking photographer based in Saint-Lô, in the heart of Normandy, so every conversation — from your first enquiry to the day itself — happens in clear English. My work has been ranked World TOP 2 at the ISPWP Awards (2022) and TOP 10 at Fearless Photographers (2023), and I sit on international contest juries — but what matters on your day is that you feel completely at ease.

In practice that means the whole chain is in English: the first call, the quote, the contract, the planning notes, and the gallery your family opens afterwards. You also get WEDBOX, a private guest page for RSVPs and for the photographs your friends take on the day — useful when half your guests are flying in and nobody quite knows the schedule. Your complete gallery — 500+ photographs in full resolution — is delivered within fifteen days, not the three or four months that are common in the industry. When you are back home on another continent, that matters.

A word on the legal side.

Legally marrying in France involves residency requirements that most international couples find impractical. The elegant, common solution is to hold your legal ceremony at home, then celebrate with a symbolic or humanist ceremony in Normandy — free of paperwork and entirely yours. Many couples also choose to elope: just the two of you, the landscape, and your photographer. I'm happy to talk you through whichever path suits you.

One honest word of caution: I am a photographer, not a legal adviser, and the rules change. For anything binding, check with your own country's embassy or consulate in France and with the mairie of the commune concerned. What I can tell you is what I see every season — that the couples who separate the paperwork from the celebration arrive far more relaxed, and that it shows in the photographs.

Where to celebrate.

Normandy's venues range from grand châteaux to intimate manor houses. What follows is not a list I compiled from the internet: these are places I have actually worked in, and the notes are what I noticed with a camera in my hands.

Châteaux

The Château de la Crête, just outside Granville, and the Château de la Lucerne d'Outremer nearby — both give you stone, height and long approaches, the kind of setting that makes an entrance feel like something. The Château de la Roque sits close to Saint-Lô, in the bocage countryside. The Château les Hauts at Saint-Jean-le-Thomas looks straight out over the bay of the Mont-Saint-Michel — on a clear evening the abbey is there on the horizon while you are having drinks. In the Calvados, the Château de Canon and its gardens, and the Château du Perron.

Manor houses and estates

Smaller, warmer, easier for a wedding of forty people than of two hundred: the Manoir de Chivré and the Domaine de la Cour des Lys between Caen and Bayeux, the Manoir de la Bégaudière, the Domaine de Cussy, the Domaine de la Guérie, the Ferme-Château d'Agneaux. Several of these let you take the whole place for the weekend, which changes the shape of the day entirely — nobody is watching the clock at midnight.

The coast, and the icons

And then the places that need no introduction: the Mont-Saint-Michel, the D-Day beaches — which mean something particular to American and British families — and the seaside towns of Deauville, Trouville and Honfleur, with their long light and their harbours.

A practical note that costs nothing and saves a lot: ask your venue what time the sun sets on your date, and hold thirty minutes for the two of you around it. It is the single decision that changes the most photographs, and almost nobody thinks of it before the day.

What it costs.

I'd rather you knew before writing to me. Three packages, each with one price in Normandy and one anywhere else in France — no hidden travel line, no per-kilometre arithmetic at the end.

• The Elopement — 3 hours, just the two of you: 1,400 € in Normandy · 1,900 € anywhere in France
• The Intimate Wedding — 8 hours, up to 20 guests, 20×30 album included: 2,900 € · 3,400 €
• The Celebration — the whole day until 1 am, luxe 30×40 album included: 4,400 € · 4,900 €

Anywhere in France is a single flat +500 €, travel and accommodation included. England and the UK are available on request, quoted individually. Every package includes the complete gallery — 500+ photographs in full resolution — delivered within fifteen days, and the WEDBOX guest page. You can see the detail on my pricing page.

Getting here.

Normandy is roughly two hours from Paris by train, and well connected to the UK by the Channel ports and ferries, and to the rest of the world via Paris airports. Wherever you celebrate in Normandy — or anywhere in France — I travel to you.

One thing worth planning: most couples coming from abroad arrive two or three days early, and use that time for the paperwork of real life — the dress, the flowers, seeing the venue in daylight. If you can, keep the afternoon before the wedding free. It is also the easiest moment for a short couple session, when nobody is waiting for you and the light is yours.

How a day usually runs.

An elopement is three hours and needs almost no planning: a ceremony, a walk, the light. An intimate wedding of twenty guests runs eight hours and behaves like a long lunch that drifts into an evening — there is time, and the photographs show it. A full celebration runs from the preparations to the first dances and beyond, until one in the morning.

Whichever shape it takes, I arrive before you need me and I stay out of the way. You will not be asked to repeat your entrance for the camera.

My approach.

Documentary and cinematic: no stiff posing, no forced scenes. I move through your day like a discreet guest, capturing what truly happens — the emotion, the light, the in-between moments you'll want to relive in thirty years.

The questions I'm asked most.

Do you travel outside Normandy?

Yes. Anywhere in France is a single flat +500 €, travel and accommodation included. England and the UK are available on request and quoted individually.

How many photographs do we get, and when?

More than 500, in full resolution, with no watermark and nothing held back for an upsell. Delivered within fifteen days in a private online gallery you can share with your families.

We're only two — is that too small?

It is one of my favourite days to photograph. The Elopement package exists for exactly that: three hours, just the two of you and the landscape.

Can you help us choose a venue?

I won't pretend to be a planner, but I have worked in most of the places listed above and I'll tell you plainly what a day looks like there — where the light falls, where forty people fit and two hundred don't. Ask me before you sign.

What if it rains?

It sometimes does. Some of the photographs I'm proudest of were made under umbrellas. A wet Normandy sky is soft, even light — the kind portrait photographers pay for.