Here is a story of Birgit & Keiro who had a full-day winter elopement in Dolomites, Italy in January 2025. This blog post will cover their story, their locations and activities, full gallery and their review of my service.

Introduction

Birgit and Keiro met in 2018 when Keiro joined TalTech volleyball team and Birgit started dancing (and cheering him on) in TalTech Cheerleaders. They are both very active individuals who enjoy spending time together engaging in various sports and physical activities. Together, they also play disc golf on a professional level and compete across Estonia and Europe. They push each other to be the best versions of themselves while having fun. Their connection is built on teamwork, competition, and a deep respect for each other’s strengths, which makes them not just a couple, but it makes them have a true partnership.

They said that marriage is primarily for the two of them, so the idea of sharing vows in an intimate setting suits them better. They can always celebrate their marriage with their loved ones, but they want that specific moment to remain just for the two of them.

Their families and friends did not know about the elopement. When they got back home, couple of weeks later it was Birgit’s birthday. When everybody gathered together to celebrate her day, they found out that they are actually celebrating much more! 🤍 They showed their photos and wedding video and let everybody know what they had done 🤭

Getting ready in the morning

The morning started with them getting ready at their hotel while it was still dark outside. They stayed at Stadt Hotel Città in Bolzano which is a very beautiful hotel with an amazing location. They got ready separately. Birgit was in their hotel room and Keiro got a little room from the hotel that he used for getting himself ready. They had hired Katharina to be their make-up and hair artist and we had such an amazing time with her! She was so energetic and wonderful and we all loved so much that the make-up she did looked very natural and did not make the bride look like somebody else. This was very important to the bride and groom and this was the main reason they chose her.

When the make-up was done, dress and suit put on, it was time for the first look. Since Stadt Hotel Città has an elevator that opens up out on the street, we decided to use this for the first look. Groom was waiting in the little hall on the street. Birgit came down with the elevator and once the door opened, the groom could see her! Such a beautiful and different way for a first look 🤗

One thing that the bride and groom asked for, were chill-sexy vibe pictures in the hotel. The hotel had a really cool green and tropical dining room that before breakfast time was entirely empty. So we also used this room for photos and also staircases and elevators.

Winter Elopement Ceremony on lake Braies, Dolomites

When the first look was done and photos were taken, it was time for breakfast. After this, we packed our stuff into the car and started driving towards Lake Braies. People usually see photos of lake Braies in summer time and there is no denying, it is magnificent! This time, we got to experience how it looks in winter time. The lake was covered with a thick layer of ice which enabled us to walk on it.

But even in winter time, lake Braies is a popular destination, so we walked quite far to the other end of the lake to get more privacy. They had the ceremony in the middle of the lake while standing on ice which was covered in thick layer of snow. It was raining a little the entire day, so we did get quite wet in the end 😅 Their ceremony consisted of them reading their vows to each other and exchanging rings to beautiful promises.

Celebration

Around lake Braies there is a trail with several picnic tables. We walked to one of those and had our celebration there. I had a little present prepared for the couple. I had ordered a wedding cake from Kiki Bakery Lab for them and I also ordered a custom made cake topper with their new common name on top of them. They popped champaign and we started eating this delicious raspberry-pistachio wedding cake!

Portraits

After this it was time for some portraits. We wandered around the lake and took photos in multiple locations.

Lunch

And of course, very important part of the day followed: having lunch! It is very important that on the elopement day the basic needs of the couple are filled: they need to have the chance to eat, go to bathroom, warm up (especially if we are talking about a winter elopement!). If these needs are not fulfilled, they are unable to enjoy the day… They went to a little restaurant in their wedding gown, everybody cheering them on 😊

Change of plans

Originally we were planning to go on top of a mountain in Dolomites to experience some amazing winter views. But as I mentioned. It was raining, the clouds were very low and the mountain peak was inside of a thick cloud. All other peaks nearby were inside of the cloud, too. Usually, I don’t mind taking photos in a cloud, since they have their own magic. But this time we also needed to take into consideration that we were already all wet from being outside in rain, on top of the mountain it is always windier and the bride was also half through her pregnancy. This means that with going on top of the mountain we would have taken a risk regarding her and baby’s health and therefore decided to stay somewhere lower. Safety always comes first!

Lake Misurina

We went to lake Misurina which is quite close to lake Braies. This is where we sent away her maiden name. In Estonia there is a tradition that if the bride changes her last name when marrying, she sends away her maiden name. I think it is such a sweet tradition of saying goodbye to it. They took a little stone, wrote the name on it and Keiro threw it nicely into the lake through a little spot that was not covered in ice. She said that this was one of the moments for her where she felt the elopement being very real.

We wandered around this beautiful lake and took some portraits, too. We had a lot of fun! At some point the bride started laughing about a sentence that sounded really wrong and funny. She just laughed… like… really hard 😅 And she just couldn’t stop laughing… 😀 This was one of the most joyous and funniest moments of the entire day 😂

Since the days in the winter are significantly shorter than they are in summer, it was already getting darker. We went to a little cafe at the lake to get some coffee, warm up and then we drove back to the hotel. This was the end of a very sweet and beautiful winter elopement in Dolomites of very sweet and beautiful Birgit and Keiro who did enjoy every little thing of the day! 🤍

FULL GALLERY

Their full gallery can be seen HERE.

REVIEW

Here is the 5* review Birgit and Keiro wrote:

“Eva’s goals for the service are reliability, a stress-free wedding day, fun companionship, and exceeding expectations – these are exactly the qualities that accompanied our day and the entire preceding process. Being in constant contact with Eva gave us the confidence and reliability that everything was under control and set up according to our wishes.

Eva’s entire organization made our whole day so worry-free; we truly had no moments of concern throughout the day or the planning process. We did expect that something might go wrong, creating stress for us, because we’ve heard from the experiences of many others’ wedding days that everyone encounters stress to some extent, but we really had zero moments of worry. Spending the day with Eva gave us so many moments filled with laughter, and we felt good and comfortable. The whole day and the resulting photo and video memories turned out even better than we had expected, and we had so many “wow” moments throughout the day and in the results.

We really can’t give any criticism because our experience was perfect and there wasn’t a single negative moment. Eva had thought of absolutely everything and had taken everything into account. She was prepared for everything – our vision and wishes, the locations, the photo and video ideas, even the malfunction of the technology in extreme weather conditions. She really made sure that we would have fun and memorable wedding day and we are thankful for that!”

Conclusion

Birgit and Keiro wanted a winter elopement in Dolomites. Even though it rained all day, we had so much fun and so many beautiful moments. Even weeks after the elopement when I talked to them, they said they kind of even liked that the weather wasn’t “perfect”. Because it made it all look moodier, different than everybody else’s photos. When you are in it for the experience, not just photos, you will enjoy every little piece of the day, even if it doesn’t go in the way it was originally planned. Because it is not just about the photos. Elopement is about quality time with your loved one! 🤍

Other blog posts you might be interested in:

Sigrid and Sander multi-day elopement in the Dolomites
Helena and Keio winter vow renewal
Kaisa and Laur full day elopement at lake Garda
5 reasons to elope in the Dolomites
How I help couples make their elopement day true to them
How your photographer’s approach defines your entire experience