are you ready for your

wild connections

Experience?

I’m Cat, Your Austria Wedding photographer

Elopements and Intimate Weddings in the Alps

I created Wild Connections for couples like you because when I got married, I didn’t know there was another way. We spent money on sh*t we didn’t care about and tried to please other people, when all we really wanted to do was spend time adventuring in the mountains.

I don’t care about viral wedding trends or making you look like influencers for the ‘gram. I want to capture your genuine, authentic joy and love, surrounded by the beauty of nature. That’s why I focus solely on elopements and intimate wedding celebrations (also because I’m a massive introvert).

I moved to the Alps in 2011, I’ve been an elopement photographer since 2015, I’m a former ski & snowboard instructor, and I’m also a certified mountain hiking guide. I know the Tirol & the Dolomites like a local, and I want to help you create a truly bespoke elopement experience in the Alps. I’m here to help you celebrate getting married in a way that feels true to who you are.

TELL ME MORE

The Benefits of working with a

local photographer
& certified guide

Having Tirol as my home fills me with everlasting gratitude. My affection for this region runs deep. It’s why I became a local guide. I consider it a great honor to share this love with couples who decide to get married in this corner of the Alps.

However, because this area is so desirable, there are a lot of people who:

  • Advertise themselves as local photographers through deceptive web pages, despite not being genuinely connected to the region
  • Have never actually set foot in the area and rely solely on second-hand (often incorrect) information from the internet
  • May have visited the region a few times but are primarily motivated by receiving a “free holiday” or using your elopement to enhance their portfolios. Unfortunately, this approach is not only detrimental to your experience, but it also exploits the region

Supporting local photographers, who live and breathe life in these mountains, is crucial. By doing so, you can help contribute to the well-being and preservation of the area and the local communities, rather than simply exploiting its beauty.

This is my biggest priority, always. I hate seeing other photographers put couples in potentially dangerous situations because it looks good on a photo, or because of their lack of education in safe travel in alpine environments.

Part of being a certified guide is doing a risk assessment for every elopement I do. I evaluate aspects such as the conditions of the trails, any potential hazards and the weather, to make the final decisions of whether the route is safe. Trail conditions can change a lot throughout the year, and some are simply not safe if the conditions aren’t right (such as if there’s been heavy rain or there is still snow on the trails).

Working with a local photographer is the most sustainable option for a number of reasons. Firstly, you’re not flying someone in, so the carbon footprint of your elopement is much smaller. Then there’s the fact that locals pay local taxes, and these contribute to really important things like road and trail maintenance.

Over-tourism is also becoming a huge problem, and to help reduce your impact (and make your day more enjoyable), I’ll help plan an itinerary and give you suggestions that help us minimize our impact.

Many photographers try to give the impression that they are local to get a free holiday by creating pages on their sites with guides to eloping in the Dolomites (thankfully Tirol is less well known). Much of this information comes from travel blogs and Google, or from a couple of short trips to the area, and it’s sadly often incorrect. The risks are that they may have visited in the off-season, or on a day when the weather wasn’t great and they just got lucky that it wasn’t busy.

I’ve seen a number of posts describing “secret locations” or “hidden gems” that were actually anything but! Locals will know which locations are busy, and will be able to give you realistic advice on what to expect if you want to go there, and plenty of other equally epic options, should you decide you’d rather visit somewhere more quiet to enjoy some peace and quiet.

Not all locations are accessible all year round. Many locations don’t become accessible in the summer until the snow has melted, and this can be different every year depending on how the winter was (some locations aren’t accessible into late June).

A local will know how the conditions were over the winter, and what times of year different locations become accessible, and will have a number of safe backup options in the bag in case you need to revert to plan B.

One of my biggest pet peeves with non-local photographers in the Dolomites is the illegal flying of drones in protected areas, climbing over fences to get better photos and general disregard for nature, private property and the local inhabitants. They see these places as just pretty backdrops to be used and abused.

Locals will never support this kind of behaviour, because the consequences hurt us, our home and potentially you too, as locations we love get closed off, bigger fences get put up and areas become irreparably damaged.

Half-Day Adventure

Not everyone wants a huge fuss for their wedding day, and I totally get that. If you like to keep things simple, then half-day coverage might just be what you’re looking for.

Half-day photo coverage is perfect for capturing a small ceremony and some beautiful photos of you afterwards in a breathtaking location, without all the pressure of having to fill a whole day with activities (although you absolutely can if you want to).

Includes

  • Up to 5 hours of continuous photography coverage
  • High-resolution downloadable image gallery of 200+ images
  • Vendor recommendations
  • Planning support
  • Timeline design

Half-day elopements are only available within a 1.5-hour radius of Innsbruck, Austria

€5500 incl. Tax

Full Day Adventure

The best adventures are when time flies past without you even noticing.

If you don’t want to feel limited by a timeline, then book my full-day adventure package and be free to enjoy the day and go with the flow, without stressing about going over your booked hours or having FOMO that you won’t be able to capture everything.

Whether you’re following a more traditional wedding timeline, or you simply want to enjoy a carefree day in the mountains, a full-day adventure allows you to capture it all.

Includes

  • Full-day photography coverage up to 12 hours
  • High-resolution downloadable image gallery of 400+ images
  • Vendor recommendations
  • Planning support
  • Timeline assistance

Full-day weddings & elopements are available within a 2.5-hour radius of Innsbruck, Austria.

€8000 incl. Tax

Day-Before or
Day-After Adventure

If you’ve chosen your wedding location because you love mountain adventures, but you won’t have time on the wedding day, then I highly recommend adding on an extra adventure day(s), either before or after your wedding day.

These additional days can be used for adventures such as:

  • Guided hikes (guided by me)
  • Skiing/snowboarding
  • Climbing or via ferrata
  • Hiking to a mountain hut to try some alpine cuisine
  • Sightseeing
  • Paragliding

You can even use it as an additional opportunity to get more photos in your wedding clothes if you want (but activewear is also just fine).

Additional days must take place in the same region as the wedding, either on the day before or the day after.

€1500 for 3 hours
€3000 for 6 hours

All Wedding photography Packages include

Epic Photos

A curated gallery of high-resolution images, edited in my signature style with unlimited downloads and sharing.

Timeline

Guidance with your wedding day timeline to ensure you have enough time to capture the most important moments.

support

Planning guidance & resources including local vendor recommendations and tailored packing lists to help you prepare.

This could be you…

During our elopement, we never expected to feel so relaxed and at ease on our wedding day. Cat allowed us to relax, have fun and be in the moment. She executed a three-day elopement that exactly fit our profile of being in the high mountains, away from crowds and with spectacular scenery.

We have just seen our full photo gallery and are blown away with the quality and the magnitude of what she can capture. The photos reflect all the adventure, remoteness, excitement and intimacy all in one.

We consider ourselves blessed to have worked with Cat. We would recommend her very highly to anyone

Ben & Sai

June 2023

There are not enough words in the world of languages to describe how absolutely incredible Cat is. From the first e-mail sent asking about her services to even today, after our trip, Cat has been sheer perfection. She got to know us as a couple to understand what we wanted to achieve with location choices and photos to capture our memories.

Her humbleness and professionalism are incredible. We wanted to capture some formal images for our elopement but also be able to capture our personalities in what we love to do, which is to be outdoors and experience new things together. The results were perfection in our eyes. What an amazing experience it was to work with her and I hope other couples are as lucky as we were and get to experience the same. If I could give an infinity star rating and write a review the length of War & Peace I would!

Bailey & Joseph

April 2022

Winter elopement on the Krippenstein mountain in Hallstatt Austria by Wild Connections Photography

There is honestly not enough amazing things I can say about working with Cat. Not only is she just an awesome person, she is fantastic at what she does. Her professionalism and enthusiasm during the entire process of planning our elopement, from start to finish, was perfect.

She was extremely communicative, put together an EPIC plan for the day, which was amazing given we had never been to that area before, and was so fun to work with on the day of. And I have to mention, given the unexpected snowstorm on the day of our ceremony, Cat revised our plans a bit, and it was absolutely PERFECT.

Anna & Jon

December 2019

Are you a hell yes?

The process

01.

Say Hello!

Fill out my contact form and let’s set up our first Zoom date. Call it our meet-cute.

This initial call helps me to learn all about your ideas and for us both to see if we’re going to make a great team.

02.

Save the date

Choose the date you want to get hitched, and get booked in.

To reserve your date, you’ll sign a contract and pay a retainer.

Then we can get to the good stuff…

03.

The Fun Begins

As soon as you’re officially booked in, you can get started on planning your big day! Whether you’re working with a planner or doing it yourselves, I’m on hand throughout to recommend trusted suppliers & advise you on the timeline.

04.

alpine start

Enjoy every moment of your one-of-a-kind wedding and re-live the memories with breathtaking photos that capture your incredible adventure.

Take the first step of your grand adventure

Contact me

If you’ve not heard back from me in 48 hours Monday – Thursday, don’t panic! I’m probably up a mountain somewhere. Emails sent between Friday and Sunday will be responded to on Mondays or Tuesdays.

FAQS

Still have some questions? Here are some of the most commonly asked questions about my wedding photography services in Austria and the Dolomites:

Yes. I believe in transparency and hate hidden fees. Because I only work locally, I don’t need to charge travel fees. Even for multi-day elopements in a mountain hut, the rates advertised include my overnight costs.

I’m a certified hiking guide (Bergwanderführer). That means I can officially guide you in mountain hiking terrain that’s classified as “moderately difficult (red)” within Tirol and South Tirol (Dolomites). I can’t take you climbing or into technical terrain, such as on glaciers or scrambling.

If you want to explore more technical terrain or try your first via ferrata for your elopement, I recommend hiring a local IFMGA/UIAGM mountain guide. Just because I can’t guide you for these activities, it doesn’t mean I can’t still come along to photograph it!

For boring legal reasons, I’m not allowed to act as a wedding planner, which means I can’t book anything for you.

In all of my packages, I am happy to assist you with the following: assistance finding a location for your photos, planning and guiding hikes, creating a timeline, planning advice around what to wear, how to prepare, how to make more sustainable choices, and sharing my contact list of other vendors you might need, such as wedding planners, florists, hair & makeup artists, videographers etc.

If you want a planner who can assist you with booking your wedding and travel arrangements, I can connect you with fantastic local planners who I’ve worked with for many years.

There’s no such thing as bad weather, only a bad attitude!

I’ll always be prepared to shoot in any conditions, as long as it is safe to do so. I have professional-grade equipment that I’ve personally tested in some pretty harsh conditions. But if it’s just a bit of wind, rain, or fog, don’t let that put a downer on your day. Some of my favorite wedding days were bad weather ones, and most of the couples wouldn’t have changed it for the world.

Don’t worry – this is completely normal.

If you’re unsure, I recommend booking the lowest package and upgrading once you’ve got a clearer plan of your day.

Yes, but because my calendar has limited availability, and priority is given to weddings & elopements, I only take requests for couple shoots within 2-3 months of the shoot date.

Ok, now stop putting yourselves down!

I’ve never worked with a couple who hasn’t said this to me before. It’s completely natural to be a little apprehensive about having someone with a camera hanging out with you all day, but honestly, after a while, you’ll forget the camera is there. Plus, my focus is always on making sure you’re just having a great time, and when you are, the photos are always banging!

This is also why I make sure to speak to you over a video call right from the first enquiry, and have regular check-ins. By the time your elopement comes around, you’ll feel like I’m an old friend, which means you’ll feel so much more relaxed. While most of the pictures I take are unposed, I’ll still be there to guide you and bring the cringy jokes so that you don’t feel awkward or uncomfortable.

Enter some confusing & pretentious photographer jargon…

Essentially, I try to shoot everything as true to life as possible and create a gallery that is a true representation of your day. If it’s bright and sunny on your wedding day, your pictures will be brighter than if it was dark and cloudy.

I work primarily in a documentary style, which means I try to capture things honestly and let as much unfold in front of me as possible. In other words, I’m there to capture your day as it happens. I’ll only give you some direction if it means placing you in better light or if something doesn’t quite work for the camera.

My priority is always to give you space to have the experience and the adventure that you want to have, without feeling like you’re on a photoshoot.

Great question! And the answer is: it depends. The number of images in your final gallery depends a lot on the timings of your day as well as the number of people attending, and how much time is spent traveling between locations (either by foot or in the car). I don’t have a minimum number of images I deliver, but it averages around 500 for a single day and around 800 for 2-day coverage.

You’ll get a small preview of your pictures no later than 1 week after your wedding day and the full edited gallery delivered to your inbox within 60 days from your wedding date.

All photos that are selected for the final gallery will be post-processed to show them in their best form. This includes color correction, and optimizing brightness and contrast in line with the style of images you see in my portfolio. I do not use Photoshop to alter images. I believe that there is nothing more beautiful than two people in love. I am there to capture your day as it happens, in an honest and real way. Of course, if you woke up with a red spot on your chin, I will take that out for you.

I don’t give out unedited images. I have a legal obligation to deliver a final gallery that is representative of the work you see on my website (and unedited images look rubbish!). So much of the magic that makes up an image happens in post-processing and it’s also how I will create images that match my signature style.

I don’t take bookings more than 18 months in advance, however, as soon as you know that you want to plan your elopement in this magical corner of the world, then get in touch.

Many couples don’t have a date in mind when they contact me. Together we’ll work out the best time of year for you to come based on the type of adventure you want to have.

The booking process starts as soon as you fill out my contact form. Once I’ve got your enquiry, you’ll receive an email from me with my full pricing guide, as well as an invitation for a Zoom call. When you are ready to book your date, I’ll send you a contract to sign as well as an invoice for a €1500 booking fee. Once both of these are completed, your date is reserved and we’ll start the planning process.

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