Plan the Perfect New Hampshire Elopement
You’re ready to throw tradition to the wind and instead of planning a big, stale affair, you’d rather elope in New Hampshire. Now you’re looking for a New Hampshire Elopement Photographer and expert! The state of NH has spectacular waterfalls, lush forests, and the biggest mountains on the East Coast, the White Mountains. The state parks and national forests are home to some of the most stunning views.
Let’s get started planning your perfect, adventure wedding day.
Why Elope or have a small outdoor wedding in New Hampshire?
The Granite State is full of beauty and the White Mountains are home to some of the best places to elope in New Hampshire and I offer a variety of elopement packages in NH. Maybe you’ve already decided a traditional wedding is not your thing, but a New Hampshire elopement might be the perfect fit for your lifestyle. New Hampshire has so many stunning landscapes from cliffs to epic mountain ranges, to crystal clear waterfalls, and is considered one of the best places in the New England region and the country for elopements. Those looking for an adventure wedding experience should look no further than eloping in NH.
Where to Elope in New Hampshire?
These are the best places to elope in New Hampshire. Check out the full article HERE, but here’s the short list of my favorite places to shoot elopements in New Hampshire.
CATHEDRAL LEDGE
FRANCONIA NOTCH STATE PARK
PINKHAM NOTCH
MT. WASHINGTON
KANCAMAGUS HIGHWAY
LAKES REGION
CRAWFORD NOTCH STATE PARK
DIXVILLE NOTCH STATE PARK
MT. CHOCORUA
Traveling to New Hampshire
The closest largest airport to NH is Boston, 2 hours driving. You can fly into Manchester, NH, but it is a smaller airport. There is so much to see and do in New Hamsphire, it’s worth it to have a car to check out all the different sights while you’re here for your elopement.
From waterfalls to mountaintops to beautiful coastline to enchanting forests, lakes and rivers, New Hampshire has a little of everything and you will need at least a few days to experience it.
Where to Stay in New Hampshire
I always recommend checking VRBO when looking for places to stay and planning your elopement. Why do I recommend VRBO over Airbnb? Because Airbnb no longer allows any type of event to take place. If it’s just the two of you that’s not a problem, but if you want to have any friends or family over and just enjoy a simple dinner celebration together VRBO allows that. In fact, there’s a box that you can check labeled “events allowed” and VRBO only shows you places where you are allowed to host a few people for a dinner celebration. Again, Airbnb is a great option if you don’t plan to use it for a celebration. I especially like their unique stays which feature super cool places, like treehouses. Who doesn’t want to elope and stay in a treehouse? I know I do!
In terms of area, everywhere from the White Mountains to the Lakes Region to the far North up in Dixville Notch are great places to check out.
REQUIREMENTS TO GET MARRIED IN NEW HAMPSHIRE IF YOU ARE FROM OUT OF STATE:
You must be 18 years old or older, you must have a valid photo ID with your current address on it, you must have a valid marriage license from the state where you live or where the marriage will take place, and it must be signed by a judge or clerk of court. And finally, if you are divorced, you need to show proof that your divorce is final and that there is no chance of reconciliation with your spouse (e.g., death certificate). If you were previously married, you need to show proof that your previous marriage is final and that there is no chance of reconciliation with your spouse.
In the state of New Hampshire, witnesses are not required to be present at a wedding ceremony in order for a marriage to be considered legal. A couple can choose to have someone act as a witness at their ceremony, but they do not have to.
Whether you’re from New Hampshire, New England, or anywhere else in the country or world, NH is an incredible place to elope or have a small outdoor wedding. From epic mountain destinations to lush forests, lakes, and rivers, there are a lot of options to host the perfect outdoor elopement getaway. So if hiking to a stunning waterfall, summiting mountains, or paddling a lake or river sounds like your idea of a great elopement day, get in touch. I don’t just take small outdoor wedding and elopement photos. I help you plan your perfect, adventurous day from beginning to end.
COST OF ELOPING IN NH?
Eloping is a great way to save money on your wedding. It also means that you don't have to worry about the stress of planning a big event. But how much does it cost to elope in New Hampshire?
The cost of eloping in New Hampshire varies depending on the type of ceremony you want and where you want it. For example, if you want a small ceremony at home, then the cost will be less than if you wanted an elaborate ceremony at a hotel.
The average cost of wedding venues in New Hampshire is around $5,000, and the average cost of a full, traditional wedding is around $35,000. But if you choose to get married by eloping in the great outdoors that cost can go down significantly. Check out an elopement cost calculator here. Eloping couples choose to pay for the things that are important to them. For some couples, that is having great photos and having the time of their lives that they will remember forever. Those things are more important than paying for a party for a large number of friends and family, most of whom they don’t see that often. Eloping couples often choose to spend more on the experience and the process of documenting their day than the guests involved.
New Hampshire Elopement Packages
As an elopement photographer I provide a service that includes so much more than just beautiful photos of your day. I am a part guide/part planner as well, helping you craft your perfect experience.
Planning guidance and assistance
You get my massively informational 90+ page elopement experience guidebook. It comes with a packing list, how to navigate family dynamics when eloping, and more. It’s going to answer questions you didn’t even know you had.
In addition, I offer planning guidance and assistance including (but not limited to) locations, timeline, and permitting requirements.
Timeline
Plan your small outdoor wedding or elopement day timeline. Want to make sure you’re choosing a location during the best time of day for light, or best time of year for weather? I make sure we do just that. And then I put together the perfect timeline of your incredible day, so everyone is on the same page and the day unfolds seamlessly!
Location Scouting + Vendor Recommendations
My years of experience have taken me a lot of different places. You get knowledge of incredible elopement locations that include everywhere from stunning waterfalls, mountain tops, forest tunnels, and coastal cliffs. Along with that comes working with some pretty amazing teams of wedding vendors. So I pass that info along too.
Activity Ideas
From a backcountry helicopter tour to canoeing, hiking, climbing, train and ferry rides, horseback riding, plane rides, and everything in between. There is no limit to what you can experience on your adventurous day.
Officiant
I can also sign your marriage license. I’m an ordained officiant in every New England state and in New York. So if you don’t want to hire an officiant or make a family member fill the role- you can say your vows to each other and I can sign the paperwork.
Travel Included
You never have to worry about paying travel fees. You don’t worry about where I’m staying or how I’m getting anywhere. One less item on your to-do list!
FAA Certified Drone Pilot
That’s right, I have a pilot’s license to prove it and everything. I stay up to date on the latest drone laws so that I can fly my bird and capture your day from a huge variety of angles throughout the day.
Elopement expert
I use my GPS to make sure we don’t get lost. And I’ll bring along things that you might not have thought about like hand warmers, tissues, umbrellas, and headlamps. Most of all, you get an expert who has been through this over 100 times to guide you through the process.
Hi, I’m Kat
I’m a small outdoor wedding and elopement photographer. I photograph weddings all over New Hampshire and New England. I love this region so much and want to give couples here an incredible elopement or small outdoor wedding experience. If you’re looking for New Hampshire elopement packages, you’ve come to the right place!
My style focuses on telling the complete story of your day, from all the quiet moments to the exciting celebrations. So whether you are eloping with just the two of you or you decided to bring along some of your closest friends and family, I capture each moment, person, and experience as it happens.
I firmly believe you should get married exactly the way you want. I hope that means you get married outside in a stunning and adventurous location. I’m here to make sure your day is completely captured. Sometimes that means I’m a fly on the wall, taking in the action as it happens, and other times that means posing you and your partner or making sure your family portraits take place in the spot with the best light.
Whatever format or timeline your day takes on I’ll work with it, because after all it is your day, and I want you to have images that let you relive every moment over and over.
Hear from my amazing clients
Kiah & David
Kat is a remarkable photographer with world-class talent. We recommend her as much as we possibly can.
For our wedding, my wife and I wanted to be married in an intimate ceremony outdoors and in nature. We hired Kat to capture our adventure wedding in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Kat was both our photographer and our officiant, which was an added bonus that really made our vision possible.
Kat was the perfect companion for our adventure wedding. When we finally met in person on our wedding day, it was like we had been old friends. We had so much fun hiking with her, and she seemingly effortlessly blended between adventure companion and expert photographer.
Perhaps most importantly, the photos came out magnificently! The pictures have brought our friends and family to tears with how stunning they are and we could not be happier or more impressed with their quality, the variety of moments she captured, or how deftly she was able to capture both us as subjects and the stunning wilderness and landscape that we occupied. Kat is perhaps one-of-a-kind in blending intimate moments between a couple and the grandeur of nature. Kat’s photography captured the story we were hoping to experience and see!
We would recommend Kat unreservedly. She was professional across the board, whether the quality of her photography, her handling of our photo shoot in being able to bring out the best of us and be a trusted companion, and our interactions and planning with her leading up to the shoot. We are so grateful to you, Kat!
Lauren & Elliot
I’ve been speechless since getting our sneak peek photos and still having a hard time finding the words to express my happiness and gratitude.
Kat is a master at her craft! Our micro-wedding was our first time having a professional photographer photograph us, so we didn’t know what to expect and just rolled with the entire day.
When we decided to elope with 14 close family members and friends we looked for an adventure elopement photographer. That then snowballed into getting married in NH and choosing 2 locations for sunrise photos. Kat was a huge help in bringing our vision to life! She made a couple location suggestions in New England and we chose what best fit us.
She has the most calming way about her but still came off as my hype woman after she was clicking away taking our photos. I felt so beautiful and comfortable with her and actually teared up when we said our goodbyes at the end of the night. She’s quite special and 1000% worth it! She let us be ourselves and just captured those moments.
If you’ve made it this far, hire Kat. You’ll never regret it!
Juila & Jeff
Kat is AMAZING, period. From the beginning, she was so responsiveness and incredibly timely. For me and my husband, we wanted to make a point about making the wedding planning process and the wedding day itself not stressful and fun. So we opted for a small wedding with 13 guests on one day and an adventure day on Mount Washington to exchange personal vows the following Monday.
Kat helped us with every detail along the way and made it easy on us to make choices. She scouted locations based on what our idea of an ideal wedding day was, she gave us list of local vendors, and she finalized a schedule for us. She was basically like our wedding planner and we found that so valuable since we didn't know what we were doing or exactly what we wanted! If we had a lot of questions, she was very willing to schedule a call to go over them with us. I've had friends tell me about their horror stories with photographers not responding to them or never getting their photos back, but I 100% never had to worry about that with Kat. She even got our photos back earlier than promised. She was truly so fun to be around that it made the days that much more enjoyable.
I also wanted to compliment the website our gallery was posted through. It's super intuitive to use and I love that it's categorized, that I can favorite photos, and that I can see which photos my husband has favorited on his own account. I can also send out links to our guests and they can send me back links of their favorites, it's super cool and convenient.
Kat also gave us some polaroid photos and some GIFS she curated, which I did not expect and absolutely loved. I knew the photos were going to be great from looking at her portfolio but they were better than I could imagine. I was also super stoked about a starry night photo and she made that happen. So if you couldn't tell from my review, Kat goes above and beyond and you will absolutely not regret working with her!
Maddy & Chris
We had the most amazing elopement experience with Kat from Swell and Stone! She was incredibly helpful throughout the planning process. She helped us find the perfect location based on the vision we had for our day and gave recommendations for lodging. She helped us put together all the details and made the entire process stress free! On our elopement day, she made us both feel comfortable being in front of a camera. We especially loved the Polaroid pictures she took throughout the day that we were able to bring home with us that day. All of our photos were amazing and captured our day perfectly. Once we got our photos, it was incredibly easy to view them through the gallery online and share them with family and friends. We can’t recommend Kat enough! She was incredibly thoughtful and made our day feel easy and adventurous!!
Gwen & Dan
We happened to stumble on Kat's page while searching for an 'adventure elopement’ photographer. We can't believe how lucky we were to find such a talented photographer, specializing in exactly the type of wedding we wanted, who also happened to be a laid-back, supportive adventure buddy for our elopement day.
Kat walked us through many of the pre-planning logistics— everything from suggesting online sources to look for wedding dresses during quarantine to sending us a full list of location options hand-picked for us. We never would have discovered our unique and epic elopement location without her research, and we're so grateful to have discovered another beautiful hike that we can revisit each year for our anniversary!
On our elopement day, we had a number of hiccups (including forgetting a full pack of hiking clothes at the AirBNB and a clasp breaking off my wife's dress at the eleventh hour—whoops!), and Kat totally rolled with it. She not only MacGyvered the dress closure but also offered extra hiking clothes in case we couldn't get the pack driven out by a friend in time— not quite the shirt off her back but pretty close! Since we were eloping without anyone but Kat with us, we feel so grateful to have clicked so easily with her and spent 'down time' on the hike comparing stories about rock climbing and retro-fitting SUVs for car-camping.
Kat helped facilitate an elopement day full of humorous and sweet memories that we'll always remember even before we saw the pictures. And then there are the pictures! Kat's photos of our day completely blew us away-- epic, honest, beautiful, and creative. We've had so many loved ones tell us that her shots of us should be featured in wedding magazines. A few family members even commented that they didn't understand why we wanted to get married the way we did until they saw the pictures.
Seriously, Kat is amazing at what she does and was excellent company for our elopement. We still can't believe that we struck such gold in finding her. Now, if only we could choose which pictures are our favorites... Never mind-- it's impossible!
Alexis & Christian
My husband and I were planning our elopement in the White Mountains of New Hampshire when we found Kat online. While planning out the day, Kat was SO helpful and completely understood the goals that we had for the day - including finding a ceremony location that our family could easily access but would still have great views. Kat was familiar with the area and made us feel at ease when we had to change plans quickly due to the weather. Our stormy/rainy photos are amazing and if Kat is your photographer, you don’t have to worry about what might happen if “bad” weather changes your plans! Kat was also able to be our officiant which was super helpful and much less stressful than trying to decide on a family member or find another officiant. Our elopement day photos are absolutely beautiful and we would definitely recommend Kat to anyone who wants to spend their day in the beautiful outdoors!
Booking In New Hampshire Now!
