Gather Everything You Need & Pack
Be present, be you, & let your authentic emotions soar.
Soak in every moment and enjoy your intentional, meaningful, perfect-for-you day together.
Remember, your day might not go exactly according to plan, but that’s half the adventure. I will do everything I can to make your elopement dreams come true, but if you’re willing to roll with the punches and embrace what comes your way, you’re bound to have an amazing elopement experience (no matter what!).
Relax, breathe, and don’t stress about anything, photos included. If you have a beautiful experience together and feel alive throughout your day, great photos will follow.
Now, enjoy your wedding day experience with your partner!!
06
Have the Best Day
What happens next?
After your elopement or intimate wedding
You’ve done it! You’ve had an incredible wedding day and I’ve taken photos of it all so you can remember every bit of it. Your next step is to sit back and relax while I carefully curate and edit your full gallery of photos from your day. This usually takes between 8-10 weeks for completion, but I will make sure you two have a sneak peek of 3-5 images within 1 week of your wedding day so you can make any announcements and begin to share glimpses of your day with your family and friends. Woohoo!
The images will be delivered as high-resolution jpegs via an online gallery. That way you’ll have access to them wherever you are. You’ll be able to easily print, share, and relive the awesomeness over and over. Feel free to share the gallery link with family and friends too! Anyone with the link will be able to access the gallery, make prints, order products, and download the images for themselves.
It’s important to make sure you download your full gallery and back up the images in multiple safe places. I recommend using both external hard drives and online cloud storage to make sure the files stay safe and sound for years to come.
Prints and Albums
“An image isn’t a photograph until it’s printed.” - Andrew Funderburg
The long awaited grand finale is here! It’s time for you to print your photos and get your very own wedding album. I know you’re not going to just let your photos sit on a computer, right? Right. ;)
There are so many awesome ways to share and display your photos, and prints & albums are two of my favorites. There’s nothing quite like picking up your wedding album and thumbing through the pages together or grabbing a stack of prints to pass around at your next gathering. It’s the best way to reminisce, share your story, and experience those wedding-day-feels all over again.
I strongly believe that your photos deserve a special place in your home, a special spot where you’ll see them often. After you have received your online photo gallery, I will help you design the wedding album that’s just right for you, and you’ll easily be able to order products and prints of all sizes. You can expect albums within 5 weeks of ordering, and prints within just a few days! Everything will arrive beautifully packaged like the gifts they are, right to your home.
Creative ways to share and display your photos:
“We Eloped” announcements, postcards, & thank you cards
A wedding album for the two of you
A “parent album” for family & friends
Unique prints on wood, canvas, or metal
Framed leaning prints displayed on a mantel, bookshelf, or picture frame shelf
Photo gallery accent wall
Panoramic prints
Tada! You now have holiday gift ideas for everyone you know.
Your day is going to be amazing, so take a deep breath and just dedicate some time to being honest with yourself about what you actually want your wedding day to look like—a day dedicated to celebrating your relationship with your partner, free of the burden of traditions, expectations, and obligations, and the freedom to just be yourselves.
You and your partner deserve to ditch all pressure and stress and instead honor who you are with an elopement or intimate wedding that speaks to you.
I’m so excited to be a part of helping you create this day. There’s truly no better job in the whole wide world, and it's because of incredible couples like you who aren’t afraid to abandon expectations that don’t fit who you are, who decided to instead seek out an experience that is authentic and honest to the special relationship that you share, that I get to live this dream.
Congrats—you've made it to the end!
Thank you!
I can’t wait to meet you—and, in the meantime, I’ll be right here to answer any questions you have and help you plan your elopement or intimate wedding every single step of the way.
You’re a badass couple doing something so brave—and your wedding day is going to be unforgettable, meaningful, and perfect. It will be an unforgettable beginning to all of the other adventures that will follow in your marriage.
Cheers to that,
xx Donna Marie
Remember, this guide isn’t a rulebook and you don’t have to memorize it (I promise there won’t be a test). Instead, let this guide be here for you to come back to as you need it, for guidance, for inspiration, for reminders, for next steps.
And I know that this information might feel like a lot all at once, but trust me, at the end of the day, eloping is about enjoying the process of getting married and making decisions that are the most “you.”
