SOLAYA

Some places just know how to be filmed 🌞

Tuscany didn’t need much from us. The light does most of the work by 6pm, the roads curve like they were built for a slow pan, and every doorway looks like it’s been waiting for a scene.

We didn’t plan much this trip. Just drove until something looked worth stopping for, and it usually was.

Ten out of ten, would get lost here again. More coming soon🤍

Florence, sent to us before we arrived 💌

Pasta still warm. W**e poured too generously. Laughs echoing down every street we didn’t mean to get lost on.

We filmed it like a postcard. One frame at a time.

Legally married at a Seattle courthouse. Actually married on the beach in Tulum months later.

That’s the version of our own wedding most people never hear, and it’s the exact question we get asked most as planners: does this have to be legal here, or can it just feel like it is?

New on the blog: what Quintana Roo actually requires if you want a legal ceremony in Tulum, versus why so many couples (us included) choose the courthouse-first route instead. Paperwork timelines, witness requirements, and the one document rule that changed this year. Link in bio.

Planning a Tulum wedding? This is the conversation to have before you book anything else. 🤍

We build our eye around places like this.

We spent a weekend with Hotel De Russie, and it reminded us what we’re always chasing behind the lens. Not a subject, a feeling. The way a room holds light before anyone walks into it, the way a garden asks you to slow down before you’ve decided to.

The Secret Garden might be the most photographed six thousand square feet in Rome, and it still surprised us. Terraced stone steps, fern spilling down a grotto wall, a quiet that feels older than the city outside the gate. Dinner followed under string lights, plates worth pausing the conversation for, a cocktail list written with more care than most short films we’ve seen.

This is the kind of atmosphere we’re always trying to document. Not staged, just noticed.

Grateful to Hotel De Russie for hosting us. More from the stay in our feed.

Some couples pose for the camera. Rachel and Brett just forgot it was there.

We spent this session working through a Tulum villa at golden hour, terracotta walls catching the light differently every twenty minutes. But the backdrop was secondary to what we were actually watching, which was the ease between them. Rachel reaching a hand down toward Brett on the staircase like it’s second nature. Him laughing so hard at something she said that he can barely hold still.

By evening the sky turned that particular blue it only holds for a few minutes before dark, and that’s when the kiss on the balcony happened, quiet and unprompted. Then back down to the stairs, her arms wrapped around his neck, both of them cracking up at nothing in particular.

This is what we’re always trying to document. Not a couple performing for a camera, but two people who happen to be in love and happen to be standing somewhere beautiful.

There’s something so special about photographing a family exactly as they are. Running, laughing, playing, and completely wrapped up in one another. 🤍

A little slice of family life in Tulum, captured in the warmth of home and the magic of childhood.

Planning a Tulum wedding from your couch is a different kind of challenge.

Everything looks beautiful online. What you don’t see is how differently each venue actually feels once you’re here…the energy, the privacy, the flow from ceremony to dinner.

We wrote the guide we wish had existed when we started planning ours. 8 venues. Honest takes. Link in bio.🤍

caught between sunlight and still water,
like the moment a memory decides to stay.

the shadows lean in, the light wraps softly,
and everything about her says: this is where I’m meant to be.

if you’ve been waiting for a sign to book the shoot… this is it 🌿✨