This day was beautifully made of the following: two beating hearts, a very, very tiny chapel, a flower eating horse, an absolutely breathtaking sunset and sky and a wild dance floor until late hours (or early, depends on the way you look at it). Also tons of love and a beautiful location. Torre de Palma is one of my favorite wedding venues in Portugal, and this day was beautiful.

Flowers everywhere. This day is a big beautiful flower in itself. I’m not sure if I’ve ever documented a day that was blooming beautifully full of flowers as this one, stunning work of the breathtaking artistry of Marta of Flow. The quietness of the preparations is still one of my favorite parts of any wedding day and you can realize so by the amounts of it I share here. Hand-painted menu, tablecloths, and placements, and even the bridesmaids stunning dresses were everything carefully thought and created by Ju at Isolda. Brasil and Portugal united into one gorgeous party with amazing vendors.

I still also feel very humbled that this wedding was selected by Vogue.com. You can read more about this day and see their selection of images with special captions by Ju, on their website HERE.

Sometimes you’re reminded of how impactful the simple things can get to be, how they can beautifully get to us, under our skin. This day was so long ago already but I didn’t want it to go by unpublished because it always reminds me of the why I started shooting weddings. Sometimes I get to photograph absolutely masterly put together weddings, aesthetically driven colossus, and I am so so grateful for that. But other times I get to photograph simplicity and to be honest that’s where this honour gets to me. And Lauren and Marty will always remain some of my favorite people in this life.

It rained and sunned on this day. The passing of the seasons in a single day. And not for a moment they took their eyes from each other. From the first look to the ceremony to the sharing of moments with their closest family and family who traveled all the way from Ireland and other parts of the world to celebrate their love with each other. To teary and funny speeches and to the presence of even those who were gone too soon (yet never truly gone), present in little tokens on their attire and hearts, this was a day that is full of what I love most to document. And not only to document but to also witness as a girl who believes kindness to be the most powerful foundation of humanity. And that is what I found in Lauren and Marty,

A day filled with wonder of the simplicity, against the odds of life’s turns and twists. They found each other and that is what they vowed to protect from this day on - the singleness of a moment their worlds collapsed and made it possible to carry love as an emblem.

Also the party was insanity represented. And I loved every moment of this day.

Photographing destination weddings is something so very unique. It’s not only the possibility of traveling but the humility that comes with it, from it, towards it. When a couple who is getting married picks you as their photographer that in itself is something so very special already, but when a couple from another country (ou different countries themselves) pick you to photograph them in any other country other than Portugal you just feel so very valued and your art so very appreciated.

When Jenny first contacted me and she told me about her and Victor I fell in love right away. A relationship that endured miles and times apart, but was ultimately meant to be. So it was more than willingly, so very excitedly and gratefully that I traveled to Cassis, in the beautiful south of France, to meet up with these two beautiful souls. I am still very grateful I can say I do this for a living because the people and places I get to meet continue to take my breath away, without end.

Por vezes demoro bastante tempo a publicar no blog algo que fotografei num momento específico da vida. Mas nem sempre consigo evitar revisitar um dia tão lindo apenas passado um pouco mais tempo do que seria de esperar, depois de ser testemunha desses momentos em tempo real. Parece que me desloco a uma nuvem de nostalgia imensa e intensa, e isso é tão bonito.

A Marta e o Afonso são duas almas lindas que amam a sua cidade, as suas pessoas e o seu incrível ser de quatro patas que é o Zé. Hoje a sua família tão bonita já tem mais um membro, e eu sinto-me tão grata de poder testemunhar o que de tão bom e bonito acontece àqueles que em mim confiaram, durante o resto da sua vida.

Sinto-me imensamente grata por vocês os dois Marta e Afonso. Para comemorar também isso, aqui está uma selecção do vosso dia e das memórias que criaram através de tanto amor.

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Sometimes it takes me a long time to blog but I can’t help but want to revisit beautiful days only a bit after actually witnessing them in real time. It feels like I move into an immense and intense cloud of nostalgia and it is so beautiful.

Marta and Afonso are two beautiful souls who love their city, their people and their four-legged Zé. Today their beautiful family has already another member, and I feel so grateful to be able to witness everything so beautiful that comes to those who have trusted in me.

I feel immensely grateful for you two Marta and Afonso. So here’s a selection of your day and the memories that you have made through so much love.

Sometimes you plan a wedding and the weather does not abide by your hopes and dreams. Sometimes you are unable to hide the cloud of disappointment and other times you just go with whatever the universe has planned for you. On this day, an October day 3 years ago, Inês and Renato said they yes on a slightly different place they had planned but with the same strength they would have done with if the day had gone along their exact plans from the beginning. Because it just feels the most important part is already at work. They were going to party amongst their favorite people and nothing would break the chain of massive fun they wanted to have. The magistral and powerful set of yeses they said during an outpour of rain outside meant the same as if they had been said a the end of a rainbow. And that’s exactly where they found themselves: completely inside a rainbow, treasured immensely by those present and it mattered nothing else other than this - they were together and all was as perfectly as it could ever come to be.

I can still feel oh so clearly how Lagos has then, that year, became one of my favorite coastal places in Portugal. It feels different than the rest of the Algarve. And I know Sara and Will feel that too. This was 3 years ago and it still feel so in tune with everything that matters to me to be able to document. It’s not only about pretty pictures. It is but about being able to read through a love so pure and being able to color it in a photograph that speaks to those who are imprinted in them forever. I loved these moments then and I still do. Sara and Will, I miss you guys.

I’m still blogging beautiful days from 3 years ago. I just can’t help but visit the client galleries sometimes and gather all the kind of nostalgia I can. It makes me feel so grateful for this journey, and it makes me deliver myself more and more to every new day that I am able to create something new. And it’s impactful the kind of supreme detail we can remember things about, even feelings we used to have, just by looking at a moment in a photograph. Even to myself this is such an intense experience - to relive over and over again the beauty of a day so very special and so very unique. I am always so grateful to be able to do this. To give myself fully to the ability of putting little bits of what I see, the way I see them, and what I believe in on a little composition that can come to mean so much to someone. And it’s the lost details I love most rather than the most expected ones. Sometimes you see something in a way nobody does and it’s there that lies your heart.

A kind of wilderness that words can not unwire, uncover, explain. I am still trying to comprehend the new things that were born on this day, in my life. Sometimes I can not truly word how much of what I do changes me. This day was 3 years ago, and I recall it all so vividly. I love Serra da Estrela with an unexplainable fire, always did. But to shoot a day like this, a love like this, emotions shining so brightly as they did right in the heart of it; when the day melts and you melt away with it - seemingly blending into one. I felt as if I was watching the most beautiful spectacle in the world. As if it was all meant to be that I was there. So that I could love what I do so much more fiercely. That I could understand that I might be worth a bit more to people than I at first understood. That my art matters, that it is possible to freeze so much more than just a moment in what I end up delivering. And that these people changed my life so much. Enriched it. Made it so much more worthy. And so much more golden. I still have no words to give and to try and explain the kind of honor and gratitude I still feel for all that unfolded on this day, under that big “carvalha”, where they shouted into the skies there was no other way other than this way; together always as one big family that could love no more than how they already did.

And as per usual this is going to be long. It deserves so.