Marcella Laine

Marcella Laine is an elopement and wedding photographer based in Seattle, Washington, who travels for destination elopements, and Switzerland is one of the places she returns to. Her site describes her as a "Seattle-based elopement photographer", and the course page on the same site calls her an award-winning destination photographer based in Washington. The page listed here is her blog post on a Swiss elopement, the Farmer's Meadow Elopement in the Swiss Alps of Bri and Vlad in Grindelwald. For couples flying in from North America who want a photographer from their own side of the Atlantic, she is an obvious name to know.

The Grindelwald elopement

The blog post is short on text and long on images, but its summary sets the scene. It was midsummer and the day was rainy, with fleeting views of the Mönch, as she tells it. The couple exchanged intimate vows in patchy sunshine, ran through rolling hills of pasture, and the day ended with a long, slow sunset on what she calls the final evening in Switzerland. She files it under both Mountain and Elopement. The previous post on the blog is another Swiss story, titled Romantic Switzerland Elopement Morning.

That summary is honest about the weather, which is useful for couples planning an alpine elopement: her Grindelwald story shows a photographer who kept working through a rainy midsummer day and made use of the gaps in the clouds rather than waiting for a clear sky.

Her Swiss work

Her portfolio page lists every shoot by couple, place and type. The Swiss entries are:

• Bri and Vlad, Grindelwald: an elopement, plus a separate couples session;
• Kelly and Vahakan, Grindelwald: a couples session;
• Savannah and Cody, Lake Oeschinensee: an elopement;
• Abbey and Max, Lake Oeschinen: a couples session;
• Rebecka and Nathan, Zermatt: an elopement;
• Kelly and Chris, Schäfler ridge: an elopement;
• Ashley and Caroline, Lauterbrunnen: a couples session.

That is a small but real body of Swiss alpine work, with Grindelwald appearing most often.

Several of the names recur elsewhere in the portfolio, which says something about how clients relate to her. Kelly and Vahakan, photographed in Grindelwald, also appear with a vow renewal in Bozeman, Montana, and a couples session at Deception Pass. Ashley and Caroline turn up in Lauterbrunnen, at Lake Pukaki in New Zealand, on Mt Rainier and at La Push. Abbey and Max, photographed at Lake Oeschinen, were also photographed in Vik, Iceland. Several couples, in other words, have booked her again for a later trip. The course page adds that she has led small photography workshops in the Swiss Alps, as well as in the Dolomites and New Zealand.

The wider portfolio

Switzerland is one entry in a long list. The portfolio can be filtered by type (couples, elopement, maternity, self-love) and by landscape (mountain, desert, seaside, urban). Most of the work is in the American West, especially Washington state: Mt Rainier, the North Cascades, Deception Pass, the Olympic Peninsula, Vantage and Seattle itself. Beyond the US she lists elopements and couples work in Chamonix, the Lofoten Islands, the Dolomites, Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki in New Zealand, Milos, Iceland, Morocco, Ireland, Rome, Puglia and Mexico, and a wedding in Edinburgh. There are also wedding weekends in Aspen, Tulum, Cabo San Lucas and California's Eastern Sierra.

The mix matters for a Swiss booking. The bulk of her work is elopements and couples sessions rather than large weddings, and her mountain work is the core of the portfolio. Anyone planning a big reception with speeches and a dance floor should look for full wedding galleries before deciding.

How she works

Her about page is personal rather than technical. She writes that photography is how she connects with new people, "putting a piece of my heart into their personal experiences", and that it is where she feels most like herself. She believes, in her words, "in the nostalgic slowness of film" and in Polaroids, and the about page links to her own travel work shot on film, including a series titled "Italy on Film" in medium and small format with Polaroids. One portfolio entry is tagged as a couples session on film, so analogue work reaches her client sessions too.

Her features are named on the course page: "The Knot, HuffPost, Junebug Weddings, and beyond". The same page promotes "Making Photos", an online course for photographers that promises a framework for approaching any environment "with curiosity, clarity, and possibility" and argues that expertise, not social media reach, is what makes a photographer irreplaceable. That is not a service for couples, but the student comments quoted there say something about her standards, for example "You taught me how to create excellent work."

Getting in touch

The site navigation carries an "Inquire" link, as well as travel guides she has written (Milos, Mexico City, Yellowstone). All of it is in English, so language is not a barrier for English-speaking couples. The site does not say whether she works in any other language, which matters if part of a couple's family speaks only German or Italian.

What the site does not settle

The pages listed here publish no prices, no packages and no information on how travel to Switzerland is charged. They do not say how many hours an elopement covers, whether she helps plan the location and timing of the day, whether she can suggest a local officiant, or how far ahead she books her European trips. The blog post does not name any venue, hotel or supplier in Grindelwald. Couples should put all of this in the first inquiry, together with their dates, since she comes from the US and a Swiss booking depends on her travel plans.

Who she suits

Marcella Laine suits couples, particularly from North America, planning a small elopement or an adventurous couples session in the Swiss Alps who want an English-speaking photographer comfortable with mountain weather. Her Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, Oeschinen, Zermatt and Schäfler entries show she knows several of the places such couples tend to shortlist.

Couples who want a large traditional wedding covered from getting ready to the last dance, or who prefer a photographer based in Switzerland whom they can meet beforehand, have less to go on here; her Swiss work is almost entirely elopements and couples sessions, and the site gives no prices to compare.