What Actually Happens on an Elopement Day?

The ceremony takes about 30 minutes. So what do you do for the rest of the day? This is the question nobody thinks to ask until they’re knee-deep in planning and suddenly realise they have no idea what an elopement day actually looks like.

It’s a fair question. Traditional weddings have a script everyone knows. Ceremony, photos, drinks reception, speeches, dinner, dancing. The structure is familiar even if the details vary.

Elopements don’t have that script. And that’s exactly why they’re brilliant. But it also means you need to think about what you actually want your day to feel like, rather than just following a template.

So here’s what a typical elopement day looks like when you work with us. Not a rigid schedule. Just a sense of the rhythm.

It’s Longer Than You Think

Most of our elopement days run somewhere between six and ten hours. That surprises people. They imagine turning up, saying vows, taking some photos, done.

But that’s not a wedding day. That’s a transaction.

A proper elopement day has breathing room. Time to get ready without rushing. Time to soak in the moment after the ceremony. Time to explore, to eat, to just be together. The photos happen throughout, woven into the day rather than crammed into a rigid window.

Winter days are shorter, partly because of daylight and partly because standing on a Scottish clifftop in January for ten hours would be genuinely miserable. But even then, we’re talking five or six hours minimum.

We Work Backwards From Sunset

Here’s something most couples don’t realise: we plan the day around the light, not around a clock.

If we’ve decided we need six hours to tell the story of your day properly, we’ll start six and a half hours before sunset. That gives us buffer for timeline shifts if the weather decides to do something unexpected (which, in Scotland, it often does).

This means your elopement might start at 4pm in summer or 11am in winter. It feels counterintuitive if you’re used to traditional weddings. The light at the end of the day is worth building toward.

Getting Ready

We’re usually with couples for 60 to 90 minutes before their first look. Partly for photography, but mostly to help them relax.

This is one of the most underrated parts of the day. You’re nervous. You’re excited. You’ve flown thousands of miles for this moment. Having someone there who’s done this hundreds of times, who can crack a joke, adjust a buttonhole (you probably call it a boutonnière), remind you to breathe… it makes a difference.

Where you get ready matters too. We help couples choose accommodation that looks good in photos, whether that’s a luxury hotel or a well-chosen Airbnb. The backdrop for those getting-ready shots is part of your story. A generic hotel room with beige walls and strip lighting? Not ideal. A place with character, good light and a sense of Scotland? Much better.

We can be as involved or uninvolved in the planning as you want. Some couples just want us to show up and shoot. Others want help with their entire trip: where to stay, where to eat, how to structure the days before and after. We’re happy either way.

The Ceremony

Most of our couples choose a humanist ceremony, which typically runs about 20 to 30 minutes. Long enough to feel meaningful. Short enough that nobody’s feet go numb.

The ceremony itself is the bit you’ve probably imagined most vividly. Standing on a clifftop, or by a loch, or in a forest, saying vows to each other with nobody watching except your celebrant and us.

It’s always emotional. Even couples who swore they wouldn’t cry, cry. Something about the intimacy of it, the fact that every word is actually for each other rather than performed for an audience, breaks people open in the best way.

Immediately After

This is the bit nobody tells you about. The ceremony ends. You’re married. And then… what?

Some couples pop champagne. But honestly? Most of our couples are cold. Scotland is not known for its tropical climate. So the first thing we usually do is get them somewhere warm.

Hot chocolate. A whisky. A beer. Whatever takes the edge off and lets them settle into that “we did it” energy. This matters more than people realise. You need a moment to land. To look at each other and actually process what just happened. Rushing straight into photos doesn’t give you that.

The Rest of the Day

This is where elopements get interesting. Because unlike a traditional wedding, you’re not locked into a venue. You’re not waiting for 150 guests to finish their starters. You’re free.

Think of the rest of the day as part guided tour, part photography session, wholly your wedding day. We drive you around the area (or walk, if you’re in Edinburgh), stopping wherever looks good, wherever the light is doing something interesting, wherever you fancy exploring.

Most couples stay within about ten miles of their ceremony location. But that’s flexible. If you want a particular feature, a specific castle or a waterfall you’ve had your heart set on, we can make it work.

The most common structure we see: ceremony, warming up, photos as we explore, stopping for food, more photos if there’s time and light, then we leave you to your evening.

But there’s no formula. Some couples want to spend hours wandering. Others want a long lunch and a shorter shoot. Some want to chase the sunset to three different viewpoints. It’s your day. We shape it around you.

What Surprises People Most

Three things come up again and again when couples tell us about their day afterward.

How quickly it goes. Every single couple says this. The day absolutely flies. You think six hours sounds like plenty and then suddenly it’s sunset and you can’t believe it’s nearly over.

How much fun it is. People expect emotional. They expect beautiful. They don’t always expect to laugh as much as they do. But elopements are fun. Genuinely, properly fun. No stress, no family politics, no timeline pressure. Just two people having the best day.

How much like a wedding it feels. This is the big one. So many couples worry that eloping won’t feel “real.” That it’ll feel like a photoshoot rather than a wedding. It doesn’t. It feels like a wedding. Your wedding. Often more so than the big traditional version would have.

The Weather Thing

Everyone worries about the weather beforehand. It’s Scotland. It’s going to rain. What if the whole day is ruined?

Here’s the truth: it’s never as bad as people think. And even when it is bad, it becomes part of the story. An adventure. Something to tell friends and family about.

We’ve shot elopements in driving rain, in snow, in mist so thick you could barely see ten feet ahead. And those couples? They don’t wish they’d had sunshine. They love that their photos look like something from a film. They love that they did it anyway.

One practical thing couples don’t think about enough: layers. If you’re a bride, we recommend bringing two additional layers. One you’re happy to be photographed in (a nice shawl or blanket that fits the aesthetic) and one you don’t care about being photographed in (a proper raincoat for the moments between shots). You’ll thank us later.

Into the Evening

We don’t always stop at sunset. Some of our favourite shots happen in blue hour, that window of soft twilight after the sun goes down. Lantern photos. Silhouettes. Street lamps in Edinburgh that make everything feel a bit Dickensian.

If conditions are right, we might even wait for the northern lights. It doesn’t happen often, but if it does… well. You’ll have photos nobody else has.

The Wedding Night

Apart from the obvious? (We’re not photographing that bit.)