A WEDDING BEFORE DAWNCharlotte & Collin

Charlotte and Collin got married in front of something far older and far bigger than a wedding. Tre Cime di Lavaredo is three walls of rock two and a half thousand metres high, up there long before anyone thought to hold a ceremony beneath them. The two of them climbed up in the dark and made their promises anyway. That is the pull of a mountain wedding: standing in front of something that size, the day feels as big as it really is.

I photograph weddings across the Dolomites, and Tre Cime is the peak couples ask for by name. Whether you are planning a wedding up here or an elopement, I would happily be the one who gets you there for first light and stays until the mountains go dark. It is a long day, and worth every minute.

A wedding before dawn

There is a version of this mountain that almost nobody sees, and it only exists before dawn. Charlotte and Collin were up there for it, in the cold and the dark, the peaks still just outlines against a sky slowly turning from black to blue. Getting married at that hour, with the whole place to yourselves, is a strange and enormous thing to do. I would recommend it to anyone brave enough.

Sunrise on the Tre Cime

Then the sun came up behind the peaks and made the cold worth it. This is the light people set criminal alarms for, the reason you climb in the dark. Charlotte and Collin had their morning in it, the three peaks at their backs and the valleys filling with light below. Not a bad view for the first morning of a marriage.

The long way to sunset

One sunrise is plenty for most people. Charlotte and Collin kept going. They carried the day across the mountains, through green passes and quiet meadows, down to the rock towers of the Cinque Torri and out to the Passo Giau, following the light until it finally ran out. A wedding day that began in the dark and ended in it, with the whole of the Dolomites in between. If you want a Tre Cime di Lavaredo wedding, this is what a day up here can be. I would love to shoot yours.