Couples elope because it’s an easy, stress-free, and intimate way to get married. As a photographer who can also officiate marriages, I make it even easier.

Note: there are officiant recommendations at the end of this post if you want something more formal.

For couples who want a really stripped-down experience without the need to find and hire an officiant, I am able to make your marriage legal and photograph it at the same time!

I can’t stress enough how very stripped-down of an experience this would be. Officiants only need to say 2 things to make your marriage legal:

We have to ask your consent to marry (the part where you say “I do”)
We have to pronounce you married

If you want your ceremony to be more robust, I’d recommend making vows to one another and exchanging rings so that your wedding can be longer than 30 seconds. If you’re going to do vows, I recommend writing them on paper. Reading them off your phone doesn’t look as meaningful on camera.

This option for me to officiate opens up a world of possibilities for us in terms of when, where, and how my couples can get married. You could literally get married in bed for all I care! I’m down for any crazy ideas people can think up.

Note that you still need a marriage license. You can get this 3 days before your marriage and it is valid for 60 days before you’d need to get a new one (if you don’t get married in that time period). This is a post about how to get your Florida marriage license online.

After your ceremony, I will take your license, fill out the officiant’s portion, and hand it back to you and you will hand deliver it back to the county where you got it or drop it in the mail. They will then give or send your official marriage certificate to you.

And there you have it…the easiest wedding photography experience of all time!

Here are some couples I married while taking their photos…

PS If you want a more formal and official-feeling marriage ceremony experience, I have two recommendations:

For a non-religious officiant, I’d recommend Carol. She’s fun and quirky. She makes ceremonies very personal. Her website is https://www.thegingerofficiant.com/
For a Christian minister who does both religious and non-religious ceremonies. She’s mature, warm, and very southern. She brings a lot of joy and humor into her ceremonies and people seem to love her. Her website is https://www.ceremonybycrystal.com/.