Finland Elopement | Winter Wedding in Lapland

Your Finland Elopement Wedding in Lapland

The most romantic Winter Wedding in Lapland you could imagine is here!

Say your vows intimately during your Finland Elopement in a snowy forest setting, surrounded by wild reindeer. Enjoy cross-country or downhill skiing, and then perform an aurora dance to encourage the northern lights to appear while you watch them from your glass cabin.

That’s a lot of epicness in one package! This could be the Finland Elopement of your dreams if you choose to embark on the adventure.

Disclaimer: I can’t guarantee that the northern lights come out during your Finland Elopement. You can be sure that I will dance my hardest and make offerings to the gods! If you can’t ski/snowboard, we can go snowshoeing instead.

• Location: Äkäsompolo, Kolari, Finland
• Finland Elopement Length: 3 days
• Meeting point: We can meet at the Glass Cabins (location to be sent upon booking)
• Participants: No guests can join apart from the couple. Though people are welcome to join your Finland Elopement otherwise on your trip, they will scare off the reindeer during the ceremony.
• No children allowed
• No dogs allowed
• Activity level: Light – Suitable for anyone.
• Climate: Alpine or mountain climate: Usually four seasons, with cold winters and mild summers.
• Available: January, February, March, December

Meet your Finland Elopement Photographer

Hey! My name is Shawna (she/her)

I am a European destination wedding and elopement photographer. I’m originally from Vancouver, Canada, and that is where my love for photography began. These days, I’m based in Italy, but my wonderful husband has a job that lets me spend a good portion of the winters in Finland with him.

I’m an outdoorsy person, a yoga lover, a rock climber. I wasn’t built for the big cities, I was born to thrive in nature. I’m an extroverted introvert and prefer spending time with a small group of people while recharging in my alone time.

I’m looking for couples who are FEARLESS and ready to show their deepest emotions through their Finland Elopement. Ones who are not afraid to let the wind blow through their hair and are ready to EMBRACE the mess. I need you to be an expert at looking deeply into your partner’s eyes and letting your knees get a little weak.

Couples who wants to nuzzle their faces together while remembering the moment when one of you popped the question, and the other one answered HECK YEAH. Show me some RAW AF kisses like you haven’t seen each other in months!

Let me join in on the most adventurous Elopement Wedding in Lapland (the adventure of love is not to be taken lightly) and let’s make people’s jaws drop with your Finland Elopement photos. I promise to be vulnerable with you if you can with me. Let it all hang out!

Your Finland Elopement - Itinerary

Underneath you find a sample timeline of your Winter Elopement Wedding in Lapland

Monday:

(Mondays are when the snowmobiling happens in your Finland Elopement):
You’ve already arrived, perhaps a day or two earlier. You’re booked into your accommodation, and ready to rock!

• 3:00 pm – We start your Finland Elopement on a sunset snowmobiling tour with two official photo stops along the way. One of you needs to be able to drive a snowmobile, which is possible with a regular driver’s license. If this is not possible for you, we can instead visit an Icelandic horse ranch.
• 5:30 pm – We’re back
• 6:00 pm – Dinner
• 8:00 pm – Northern lights gazing from the frozen lake! We will need to take a taxi here and there will be a 20-minute walk through the forest. Timing depends on if/when the lights come out.
• 11:00 pm – Hopefully we’ve got the lights and everyone is in bed by now.

Tuesday:

• 9:30 am – The next day of your Finland Elopement, after we’ve had breakfast, we head towards the reindeer. We get a taxi to a specific point, then start walking.
• 11:00 am – After walking through a beautiful, snowy forest, we come upon some wild reindeer. They are friendly, don’t worry! They are also afraid of humans, so you can’t get too close, or they will run off. But they’re always hanging around somewhere!
• 11:15 am – IT’S GO-TIME. Time to say your vows to each other, get your tissues out, and let yourselves be fully vulnerable with each other during your Wedding in Lapland.
• 11:30 am – You’re crying, I’m crying, the sky is crying with some fresh, fluffy snow. It’s been a beautiful Finland Elopement moment, and we continue to spend another hour taking photos of reindeer.
• 1:30 pm – We’ve made it back to civilization, so it’s lunchtime.
• 3:30 pm – We go to the Glass Cabins so you can check in and are ready at 4.
• 4:00 pm – We start with a romantic shoot between the two of you at the glass cabins. Depending on the weather, I will bring my drone out and take photos from above.
• 6:00 pm – Dinner time, depending on the light and weather I may go back to my accommodation for a while.
• 8:00 pm – We start shooting with the northern lights! I start by getting some while you’re in your cozy cabin (shooting through the glass), but then you need to join me outside in the snow 😉
• 10:00 pm – We wrap up for the night

Keep in mind, the lights could come out only at 1 am, or sadly not at all.

Wednesday:

• 10 am- You’ve checked into your new accommodation. By 11 am we’re at the ski hill, we’ve rented our gear, and up we go! We take photos of the two of you in your wedding attire ripping it down the mountain (just kidding, if you go too fast, I will miss you!)
• 2:00 pm – That’s a wrap for skiing.
• 3:00 pm – Optional, you can opt to ski longer instead, or do a sunset snowshoe hike. We can visit a traditional Finnish sauna and do some cold dipping in a hole in the frozen lake. I might not be able to get any shots of the two of you in the sauna due to the humidity (possibly a quick few at the beginning, but sometimes my lens fogs too much to get anything). But I can certainly get some photos of you getting into that frozen lake! Photos, or it didn’t happen 😉

And that’s a wrap! We’ve had an incredible time together, hopefully, lots of northern lights, and you’re now feeling like a real married couple.

Your Elopement Wedding in Lapland - Comments

There is a possibility to reschedule your Wedding in Lapland by +-2 days under the following conditions:

A severe snowstorm could make it better to reschedule your Finland Elopement. My photography will be possible to reschedule depending on my availability, but the glass cabins will not.

There is some flexibility in the schedule, and I can always ask if the snowmobiling can be done another day, but normally they embark on Mondays.

Aside from that, you can let me know in which order you’d like to do your Finland Elopement. I can advise you on if it works, or what else needs to be changed. I may need to contact the companies to see what is possible for them.

LGBQT-friendly Elopement Wedding in Lapland

I am open to all kinds of relationships, and I have never seen any issues with people being discriminated against.

No possibility of getting legally married on your Finland Elopement.

Payment terms

• 15% directly payable as a deposit to our platform. The rest of the payment goes directly to the vendor.
• 30% is due after the call with the vendor directly to them. Paid online with Wise (cheapest), Revolut, Paypal, or direct transfer (my account is with a European bank)

The rest of the payment is due 30 days before your Winter Wedding in Lapland.

Payment plans are available for your Finland Elopement.

Your Winter Wedding in Lapland includes

• Actual hours of photography vary depending on which activities are done on your Finland Elopement, but you have full coverage over the time we spend together in those 3 days, with the exception of obviously required eating and sleeping breaks.
• Amount of photos will be a minimum of 500 edited, hi-res photos of your Wedding in Lapland
• Delivery will be in a beautiful online, password-protected gallery for 1 year
• On your Finland Elopement, 1 activity is included on Monday (snowmobiling or visiting the Icelandic horses), and 1 or 2 activities are included on Wednesday (skiing + sauna or snowshoeing)
• 1 night in the Glass Cabin is included

Your Winter Wedding in Lapland does not include

• Transport: to and from your Finland Elopement
• Transport around town: we will need taxi rides to a few places. This depends a bit on where you are staying the nights before. We may need 6 taxi rides.
• Transport to and from the airport: I can book this for you at a cost
• Food, though your accommodation may provide breakfast. The Glass Cabin provides breakfast for the morning after you’ve slept there
• Extra activities to do in your Wedding in Lapland, though you can book them through me.
• Travel Insurance
• Accommodation for other nights (one night in the glass house cottage is included)

Your Finland Elopement - Packlist

• Bring your best thermal layers. You never know what the weather will be like on your Finland Elopement, it could be +2ºC the whole time, or it could be -30ºC (usually it’s not that cold or that warm)
• If you want to ski, bring ski gear or prepare to buy some there
• If you’re wearing a dress, I recommend bringing nude leggings to go underneath that match your skin tone. Or black if you’re not bothered by it being in your Finland Elopement photos
• Sunglasses are great for warding off the brightness of the snow
• There will be snow everywhere on the ground, if you have nano-spikes you can use them, though you can easily get by without
• Don’t forget your important elopement items; the rings, ring boxes, vow booklets, other jewellery, cuff links, hairpieces, “something blue”, whatever else you want to include on your Winter Wedding in Lapland
• If necessary, you can bring a portable steamer, though it’s possible you can just hang your outfits in your sauna and add a lot of water to the rocks (wherever you stay, there will be a sauna, and it’s probably private for you)
• If you don’t want to get photos in your dress all the time, bring a second outfit to wear for shooting. However keep the cold in mind.

Your Winter Wedding in Lapland - Tips & Infos

• You will need to fly into Kittila airport (it’s an 11.5-hour drive from Helsinki).
• From Kittila, you can take a shuttle bus to Äkäslompolo. I can arrange this for you at an extra cost, or you can easily do it yourself.
• How long you stay in Äkäslompolo is up to you, but I suggest you arrive at least one full day before our experience, and not the day of your Finland elopement. Perhaps longer if you have jetlag
• There is not much nightlife during your Finland elopement, there is a small town with a few restaurants, bars, and cafés. A full week is a good amount of time to be in Äkäslompolo, less if you don’t want to do all the activities because there isn’t much else to do.
• Other activities that you can do on your Elopement Wedding in Lapland, and I can help you book at an extra cost: Visiting a reindeer farm, dog sledding, visiting an ice village at night, seeing Icelandic horses, guided snowshoeing tour to the highest point, cross-country skiing with lessons from a local, ice fishing, fat biking through the national park.
• You can rent super thick gloves, snow pants, a snow jacket, and proper winter boots for your Finland elopement excursions on the snow scooters, northern lights gazing, husky/reindeer sled rides, etc. They are far too warm for going skiing in, but they will save you for those times when you’re standing outside being inactive. I highly recommend renting them for the northern lights, at least.
• Wherever you stay in your Finland elopement, it will likely come with a sauna.
• The Finnish are very strict on rules and will be forward with you if they see you doing something slightly wrong.
• With that in mind, don’t walk on the cross-country ski tracks.

Your Elopement Wedding in Lapland - Add-ons