Ahhhh, we cannot exaggerate the joy it brought us to share Vanessa’s home country of Scotland with the lovely Victoria and Clay. They traveled with their closest family all the way from Texas to elope on the Isle of Skye, dreaming of the romance and lush natural beauty that Scotland offers.

When we’re in the planning phases with our couples, we always encourage them to go all out for their elopement experience, in whatever way feels right for them: it doesn’t need to be fancy if that’s not your style, but your day should feel SPECIAL. Victoria and Clay really took us up on this advice: they packed so much into their two day elopement and truly made it the trip of a lifetime.

We met Victoria and Clay at the less-than-civilized hour of 2.45am in order to hike up The Old Man of Storr in time for sunrise: it’s not actually a massive hike but Scotland is so far north that summer daylight hours are looooooooong and sunrise comes early!

This area of Skye is STUNNING but with that also comes a certain level of popularity ie. hordes of tourists. Along with making the most of that beautiful morning light, this was another reason we encouraged the early start: we had the entire place pretty much to ourselves through the early hours, and only started seeing the string of day hikers once we were already making our descent. A sense of privacy makes SUCH a difference on your elopement day, and we highly recommend hiring a photographer who knows the area well so they can help you navigate these things.

Next stop was The Quiraing! This is another Isle of Skye ‘hot spot’ (for good reason, it’s spectacular beyond belief) but as long as you get there early enough – before the tour buses arrive at 9-10am – it feels peaceful, romantic and quite honestly otherworldly.

So, at this stage we’re already two amazing locations in and it’s STILL only early morning, with so much potential for the incredible day ahead! From The Quiraing, we followed the narrow, winding, sheep-lined roads back towards Portree, the sleepy capital town of Skye, and picked up Victoria and Clay’s families. We then turned off onto an even narrower, even more winding road (welcome to rural Scotland!), and disappeared far away from any tourists and the ‘hustle and bustle’ of the island’s hotspots. The Isle of Skye is much bigger than people realize and, with a little insider knowledge (ie. a Scottish photographer: hey, hi, that’s us!), it’s entirely possible to go a little off-grid and feel like you’ve got the whole world to yourself.

Victoria and Clay chartered a private boat to take everyone out to a remote loch for their elopement ceremony. On the way out, we not only had incredible views of the landscape, but were also lucky enough to pass by a whole colony of seals lounging on the rocks.

Victoria and Clay hired an incredible bagpiper to accompany them, which added such a special touch to their day. Grant is your quintessential Scot: raw and real, warm and friendly and with the most excellent banter! And, oh, has he mastered his craft: his bagpipe playing was phenomenal and he had everyone in incredibly high spirits as we settled in for Victoria and Clay’s ceremony.

We held their ceremony on the edge of a loch, with peaks rising behind and it truly felt like a dream. I mean, what an insanely special way to commit your lives to one another! As well as sharing personal vows, Victoria and Clay added a Scottish touch to their ceremony by sharing a drink of whisky from the quaich. A quaich is a two handled cup, known as the loving cup, and helping each other to drink from it symbolizes your love and support of one another throughout life. 

The whole group celebrated Victoria and Clay’s union with a dram of whisky and on the way back it seemed Mother Nature was celebrating with us, too, as we were treated to a pod of dolphins jumping just behind the boat! 

At this point we parted ways with Victoria and Clay, as they headed off for a celebratory dinner with their family. 

But the adventure wasn’t over, not even close!

That evening, we reconvened at Eilean Donan castle on the Scottish mainland, where we enjoyed the most beautiful weather and captured dramatic photos with the castle as a backdrop. There are some precise rules and regs around shooting at the castle as it is on private property, but that’s something we are aware of as your elopement photographers and we’ll make sure we’re all sticking to the rules!

And so a truly magical elopement day came to an end: 4 incredible locations, a private boat ride, a bagpiper, a romantic ceremony, a castle…. What a way to make the most of your elopement experience!

And yet our adventure STILL wasn’t over…

The next day, after a good night’s sleep all round – and a full Scottish breakfast on our part – we drove south a couple of hours and met back up with Victoria and Clay for a fun ‘day after’ session in Glencoe. If you’d like to see more from that session, just click here.

Let’s do this thing!