A WINTER WEDDING AT PASSO GARDENALaura & Ale

Everyone photographs the Dolomites in summer, when the meadows are green and the passes run nose to tail with motorbikes. Laura and Ale wanted them in the snow. So we drove up to Passo Gardena in the middle of winter, 2,136 metres up between Val Gardena and Val Badia, and had the mountains more or less to ourselves.

It was the two of them and no one else. No guests, no procession, no order of the day. They put on their wedding clothes, we walked out into the snow, and they said their vows with the Sella at their backs and not another soul in sight.

Winter up here is not the easy option. The light is short, the wind comes straight off the snow, and the best ground is a walk from the road. In return the place is yours: no queue for the view, and nobody wandering into the back of a frame. The two of them felt the cold a good deal less than I did.

Partway through we stopped at the little chapel below the pass. They stood in the doorway a minute, out of the wind, and then we were back out in it.

By the afternoon they had stopped paying attention to the camera and started messing about in the snow. That is usually when the good frames happen, the moment a couple forgets I am there.

I shoot a lot of weddings in these mountains, and most of them are in summer. This is the version I would choose. If you want to marry up here with the Dolomites to yourselves, come in the cold and bring me with you. There is more of my mountain work in the Dolomites guide, and you can find me here.