How to create an adventure experience?
PRACTICAL GUIDE
This is a manual to help you design a successful adventure wedding experience. You can also create Adventure Couple sessions, Proposals, Vow Renewals and Honeymoons and apply the same principles to them as written below here.
Getting started tip
If you are not so clear about your pricing yet, struggling to come up with itineraries, you might feel more comfortable to create an adventure couple photo session experience first (from 2 hours).
If you are photographing and/or organizing elopements and adventure weddings for some time and have premade itineraries + collaborations with vendors, feel free to create more detailed experiences with more extra services as booking options.
It is a good idea to check out the experiences already uploaded on our site. Get inspired 🙂
Watch the founder's video on the concept
Basic experience creation principles
Local area - sustainability policy
We want to strongly encourage you to create experiences in short travel distance from your hometown. While travelling to far away locations for weddings might be an interesting thought to entertain, it is not a very sustainable concept.
You will be able to provide the best service to your couples if you actually are a local or have a personal connection to the place that your experience takes place.
If you are a perpetual traveler/lead a nomadic lifestyle, please just create experiences in the places you will be anyway travelling to and specify your availability.
Predesigned base experience
You should design a base experience with as much detail as possible. You are the expert, you have to guide the couple and show them a dream itinerary.
Required length of experiences
- Adventure weddings: min 4 hours
- Proposals, vow renewals, adventure session: min 2 hours
- Honeymoons: min 2 days
Every experience should have
– at least one activity
(hike or other)
– photographic coverage
– ceremony/vow exchange in case of weddings and vow renewals
Optional add-ons
After couples find your amazing experience through our sophisticated filtering mechanism, we are sure they want a bit of extras.
That is why we recommend having pre-designed bookable additional services.
Consider it a bit like when you order your favourite ice cream combo and you can chose a few of the toppings.
A few examples:
- Flower bouquet
- Extra hours of photography
- Picnic lunch
- Musician for the ceremony
- Accommodation scouting
- Photo book
How to think of and structure your experience?
Think about how you would plan an awesome day for yourself.
Show your uniqueness and who you are and design a day which you would love yourself. It can be a road trip, a hike, all kinds of outdoor activities or even a scavenger hunt in the city. The only rule is: Make it special!
If you already photographed or organized some adventure weddings and elopements: draw on your experience, what did work in the past? What do you have pictures for? What did you dream of always doing with your couples
Decide where you wanna design the experience.
Chose a place you love!
What activity would you like to do together with the couple?
Draw on your passions and get creative.
Define the time and place of the vow exchange
What can you do before and after the vow exchange?
Ensure the program has photographic coverage
Arrange meals if possible, or define how it will be handled
Think of an accommodation if it is an overnight experience
Define bookable add-ons
(flower bouquet, celebrant etc.)
Do your pricing
Wedding planning & photography is a luxury, hedonistic need. Competing on price (being cheaper than another expert) and/or trying to appeal to everybody is not a good pricing strategy for this market. Instead, you can attract the right couples by providing a different, totally unique experience and offering a higher-class service.
Our pricing guideline is:
- Adventure weddings: minimum 1000 $ price + minimum 4 hours long
- Adventure sessions, vow renewals, proposals: minimum 600 $ price, + minimum 2 hours long
What about photos?
Tell a story!
You do not need to show every detail of a full day experience. Think about how you could tell the story of the experience, give a mood.
5-10 horizontal photos work best
If you have already photographed the exact experience, you just need to choose your “best of” pictures.
Don’t worry if you don’t have all the pictures yet to demonstrate every detail of your experience. Part of the fun on the Adventure Wedding Platform is to come of with totally fresh elements & activities. You can always provide pictures of these later on.
Get creative!
You might not have photographed the experience you are designing, or maybe just a part of it, so you might be missing pictures.
There is a solution.
Use some portraits of adventurous couples you have in your portfolio which could fit the experience.
Do a styled shoot with models at the location, enjoying some activities from the itinerary.
Get the missing pictures!
Maybe you have all the photos of the hike and ceremony, but you would like to promote a hot air balloon ride or a glamping accommodation for your experience.
It’s best to feature your special activities & offers in photos.
If there is no option to do a styled shoot, alternatively, you could ask the service provider to help you out.
In the above example, the accommodation and the hot air balloon company) might be able to provide a photo to be featured in your experience. You could also agree with the company to take a photo of their offer/product without a couple present.
Itinerary – how to structure your experience.
Think about the key elements and start from there.
Start by defining a place and timing for the vow exchange and then build the rest of the program around it.
What activities will you do on the experience, and where do they fit around the ceremony time? Before/after? Will there be a “Getting Ready” as part of the experience with a First Look?
Do you want to offer a first dance after the vow exchange?
If your experience is longer than 4 hours you will also need to plan for a meal/ food break (Romantic picnic, cooking over the campfire, cozy restaurant etc…)
Where would you go and what activities would you include for it?
As a very minimalist approach, you would include a meeting point and then hiking together to a beautiful place, taking photos during the hike and the vow exchange. However, it would be awesome if you could use this minimal experience as a starting point and add some more activities to the itinerary.
Maybe there is a river nearby perfect for kayaking, maybe it is just a sweet look-out that is amazing for a first dance in the sunset. Maybe there is a natural spa somewhere nearby? Or there is a hot air balloon service available? Think of possible program options to make your experience stand out.
Where and when would you suggest the couple to make their vows, or do a ceremony?
Plan for the ceremony in the most awesome location and preferably at a nice light situation.
In what ways can you make that ceremony special? Maybe you invite a musician, or maybe the amazing sunset and the view is enough. Most couples are happy with an intimate vow exchange that they prepared themselves. If you have the option to collaborate with a celebrant you can offer it as an optional add-on to your service.
How can you organize food, drinking and eating?
Maybe a tent can be put up and someone can cook for the couple. Maybe it is all self-made. Maybe there is a cute restaurant on the riverside and you take them there. Or you just go for a picnic.
If it was to be an overnight or several nights experience, where and how could you sleep?
We encourage versions of camping or glamping or natural housings, small cottages, but again, it is up to you and depends on the possibilities of the place.
Then you need to figure out some other details like…
Which months does the experience work? How many people could possibly join the couple? What do they need to bring for themselves, and what can you provide?
What vendors could I be working with?
Maybe you have already trusted partners but even if you do not, you can find some. Having an adventurous celebrant and photographer at hand is great. You could think of possible partners for outdoor activities in the area of the experience. Same goes for wedding planners, florists and caterers specializing or being open for adventure weddings. Please take into consideration that not everyone is fit or willing to hike many miles, so make it clear when you talk with them.
Think of the basic elements of the experience and optional bookable services
Optional add-on can be anything like make-up for wedding day, a celebrant, a musician, a flower bouquet, an extra night etc. Think of elements which are not essential to the experience but couples could like to book it by choice. By this, you help them tailor the experience to their needs and give them some cost control.
What about legally getting married?
Usually it is very complicated, if not impossible, to get married in a foreign country and in the middle of nature. Most couples do get married before or after the adventure wedding experience, mostly in their own country and the ceremony you organize will be symbolic.
Your submitted content
What will happen with my submitted experience?
Once you submit, we will carefully review it and get back to you. We might change the text a bit for SEO and marketing purposes and might ask for some clarification.
After that, we publish your experience as soon as possible and start marketing it on our channels.
Can I submit a promotional video?
Yes, we can feature it on the experience page and when promoting your experience on our marketing channels.
You have to submit it without your logo or business name in order for us to be able to use it.
Do you gain right to use my images?
Well, we need to promote your experience with photos. So we gain a non-exclusive right to use the images submitted with your experience, mostly together with the promotion of your experience. In rare occasions we might use it for general promotional campaigns.
Qot some questions still?
You can contact us anytime via mail or ask your question in our exclusive vendor facebook group.
Make sure to visit our FAQ for vendors page as well.