New Orleans Elopement Photography

Katie and Leo Tie the Knot in the French Quarter

One thing I really loved about working with Katie and Leo is that they encouraged me to completely be myself. I always invite clients to be exactly who they are. But sometimes I feel like I have to reign in my weirdness a little bit. For, you know, the sake of professionalism or something. Or at the very least censor myself to a certain extent. But not with these guys. From the jump they were straight up like “tell me how you really feel” and it turned out they felt the same way about things that I did. It’s pretty freeing to be able to just be me when working- and Katie and Leo seemed to be pretty happy to just be them! What’s the point of eloping in New Orleans if you can’t be yourself?

Katie contacted me months ago with her plan to get married at a Wedding Chapel in the French Quarter. If you’re an out-of-towner, you may not realize that you can get married literally anywhere in New Orleans- all you need is an officiant and 2 witnesses (your photographer and her assistant work perfectly well for this!). You aren’t required to go to a courthouse or a chapel. You certainly can do that if it’s what your heart desires. But you really can do whatever you want as long as the paperwork is filed properly. But the upside of doing things in a designated wedding chapel is that it’s a one-stop shop (save for a trip to the office of vital records). They’ll provide the officiant, the witnesses, and even mail off your paperwork for you. Those are some serious pros. If you want, you can hire a photographer through them as well. But if you’d like to bring your own, they’ll charge you extra. Since you don’t get to choose your photographer when you hire one through them, this extra fee is probably worth it!

The lighting in the chapel isn’t great, I won’t lie. For brightly-lit images, I would need to shoot with a flash. I try to avoid photographing ceremonies with flash if at all possible. It’s distracting, to say the least, especially in a dimly lit chapel. Sometimes it is unavoidable (like for ceremonies that happen outdoors after dark). But natural light really is the best way to go as often as possible. They also don’t do short ceremonies any later than 3:30 on weekdays so outside of Daylight Saving Time any portraits done outdoors before or after will have hella bright light. So that’s the downside of photographing in there. And while we are being honest (and I’ll probably get blacklisted for saying this but whatever), there are some pretty antiquated things said before and after ceremonies at the chapel. The ceremonies themselves are short, sweet, and lovely. The officiants have clearly presided over countless unions and they know their stuff. There are a number of kitschy traditions they do at the chapel that in and of themselves are cute and memorable. But I’ve seen multiple officiants say some pretty sexist things to the couples that roll off as if they are jokes. I’ll spare you the details but all of it plays into very outdated, patriarchal, heteronormative ideas of marriage. The whole experience would be elevated if they dropped the “jokes” and just offered couples a fun experience without all the sexism. I’ve yet to work with a couple who got married there who didn’t agree. The chapel is a French Quarter institution and I wish they would keep up with the times a bit better.

::steps off soapbox::

Katie and Leo opted for a 2 hour session with me so that we could run amok around the French Quarter and City Park after their ceremony and all of their photos wouldn’t be in one dimly-lit room. I am so happy they went that route because damn did we ever have a good time together! After doing a lap around the upper quarter, I had them hop in with me and my assistant for the trek to City Park instead of waiting on an uber. It was still sticky and hot for late October but the couple took it in stride. We seemed to have developed a number of catch-phrases together before the whole thing was said and done (one of which I still use every day and I really wish they were around to get the inside joke!). As I mentioned before, we had to work earlier in the day than I normally would due to time constraints at the chapel. But my assistant got a good arm workout holding up a “cloud” (a large diffuser panel) to block the sun. I really could gush forever about how fantastic this couple was to work with. I’m not the only person who thinks they’re awesome either- a few days before the ceremony, a friend of theirs contacted me and asked to buy their new orleans elopement photography package as a wedding gift for them! She didn’t want them to know beforehand so I waited until after the ceremony and quietly refunded the couple. After spending only 2 hours with Katie and Leo, I can completely understand why someone would want to give them that gift. They’re fun-loving, honest, hilarious, and so damn in love with each other I could cry (also, Leo’s Alabama accent came out every once in a while and it was cute as heck).

Enjoy this selection of Katie and Leo’s French Quarter Elopement Photography.

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