Tanner and Laken | Private Vows in Ravello

Tanner and Laken were planning a large wedding in Indiana with their families, their friends, and the full production that comes with a celebration at home. But before all of that, they wanted something that belonged only to them. A few hours in a quiet town above the Mediterranean, a pair of handwritten vow books, and nobody watching except me.

They contacted me from Indianapolis a few months before the trip. The idea was simple: fly to Italy, spend a few days on the Amalfi Coast, and carve out one afternoon in Ravello to exchange private vows, just the two of them on a terrace overlooking the sea.

No officiant, no witnesses, no schedule. They would read their promises to each other, I would photograph the moment, and then they would go to dinner.

A private vow exchange is different from an elopement in Ravello. An elopement replaces the wedding. This precedes it.

Tanner and Laken wanted the intimacy of saying the real words in private, with no audience to perform for, and then the joy of celebrating with 200 people back in Indiana a few months later. Both experiences mattered to them, and they did not want to choose between the two.

Inside Palazzo Confalone

We started the day at Palazzo Confalone, where they were staying. The palazzo dates to the late 13th century, with a courtyard framed by medieval arches, original marble columns, and a painted triptych on the wall of the main hall that dates back several centuries. The interior spaces are smaller and more personal than the big Ravello hotels, which is exactly why it works for a day like this.

I shot the first portraits in the atrium, using the triptych as the background. Laken was wearing a white strapless gown, minimal and clean, which stood out against the faded colors of the painted panels and the warm terracotta of the floor.

The light inside the hall comes through a glass structure that covers the original Angevin opening, and it fills the room evenly without the directional harshness of a window. I did not need to reposition her or add any light. The space works as a natural studio.

In the tiled courtyard I shot the two of them standing apart at first, then walking toward each other. Tanner in a navy suit, Laken in white, the geometric pattern of the majolica tiles creating lines that lead the eye toward them.

The courtyard at Palazzo Confalone is enclosed on all sides, which blocks wind and street noise and makes the space feel genuinely private. Even on a busy afternoon in Ravello, nobody walks through here unless they are a guest.

The Streets Between

After the palazzo we walked into town, the same streets and gardens covered in our wedding in Ravello guide. Ravello is pedestrian-only in the center, and in the middle of the afternoon the streets are at their quietest: the morning tourists have left, the dinner crowd has not arrived, and the light is warm and directional as it comes in low from the west.

I work with a 35mm prime for street portraits because it includes enough of the architecture to show where we are without distorting the proportions of the couple.

The streets of Ravello are full of details that frame a photo naturally: arched doorways, iron gates covered in trailing vines, colorful facades in peach and yellow, balconies with terracotta pots. I look for doorways and archways that create a natural frame within the frame, and the couple walks through them while I shoot from a few meters ahead.

The Blue Door

There is a small bar near Via San Giovanni del Toro with a blue door and a stone counter visible through the entrance. I stopped Tanner and Laken there for a couple of frames because the blue against the warm stone created a color contrast that the rest of the street did not have.

They leaned against each other in the doorway, and the barista inside raised a glass. Those candid interruptions are what make Ravello portraits feel like Ravello, not like a studio set dressed to look Italian.

We continued past the stairs that lead down toward the valley, stopping where the view opens to the village rooftops and a bell tower against the hillside. Tanner and Laken stood at the low wall, holding hands, looking out. I shot from behind them first, wide, to include the full depth of the view and show the scale of where they were standing. Then I moved to the side and switched to a longer lens for a tighter frame with the bell tower rising above their shoulders and the rooftops layered below.

On the way down, there is a stairway between two stone walls where the light hits at an angle in the afternoon and creates a warm stripe across the middle of the steps. I asked them to walk down slowly, hand in hand, and I shot from below. The stairway narrows the composition and puts all the attention on the couple, with the sunlit stone behind them and the shadow of the walls on either side. Laken turned to touch Tanner’s face mid-step, laughing at something he said, and that frame ended up being one of the best candid shots of the day.

The Yellow Pergola

From the center of town we walked to the Villa Comunale, specifically the Giardini della Principessa di Piemonte. In late spring and early summer, the stone colonnade at the entrance to the gardens is covered in Lady Banks’ roses and yellow wisteria. The blooms cascade down from the top of the pergola and form a canopy of gold over the walkway. It is one of the most visually concentrated spots in Ravello, and for a few weeks each year, it looks like something from a painting.

Shooting the Yellow Canopy

I positioned Tanner and Laken under the pergola and shot from below, letting the yellow flowers fill the top of the frame. The sunlight filtering through the petals created a warm, diffused glow on their faces that a reflector or flash could not replicate.

They kissed under the archway, walked through it holding hands, and stopped at the far end where the flowers thin out and the view of the coast opens up. Each position gave a different frame: the tight tunnel of flowers, the couple emerging into the open, the wide landscape with the sea behind them.

The gardens are free to enter and rarely crowded, even in high season. Most visitors pass through quickly on their way to the Duomo, which leaves the pergola and the lower terraces quiet for twenty or thirty minutes at a time. For a portrait session, that is enough to work through several setups without rushing or waiting for people to clear the frame.

Villa Rufolo’s Cloister

From the Villa Comunale we walked the short distance to Villa Rufolo, entering through the ruined arch near the old entrance tower, a pair of fan palms filling the gap where a wall has long since collapsed. I shot Tanner and Laken small under the arch here, the scale of the ruin doing the work a much larger crowd would do at a wedding: reminding the viewer that this pair of people is standing inside something far older than either of them.

The Moorish cloister is the reason most photographers bring couples to Rufolo at all, and it earns the trip. A double row of slender columns with scalloped, lobed arches runs along one side of the courtyard, terracotta pots of white cyclamen lined up beneath them. I placed Laken and Tanner between two of the columns, foreheads together, and shot through the row of arches so the repetition of the columns framed them from both sides. The stone here is a warm, sandy color that holds afternoon light without glare, which meant I could work without worrying about harsh shadows across either of their faces.

We finished this stretch of the afternoon in the lower vaulted rooms beneath the gardens, rough stone arches and columns with almost no natural light except what comes through the openings at either end. I slowed my shutter down here and let the deep shadow do most of the composition, Tanner and Laken dancing a few steps together in the near-dark of the corridor. It is the quietest, least photographed corner of Rufolo, and after an afternoon of bright color, gold pergolas and white gowns against blue sky, it gave the gallery a moment of shadow before the light of the vow exchange.

The Private Vow Exchange in Ravello

In the late afternoon we returned to Palazzo Confalone. The terrace overlooks the Gulf of Salerno, with the coastline stretching from Minori and Maiori to Capo d’Orso, and on a clear day you can see the mountains fading into the haze above Vietri. A small table had been set for two: wine, a candle, and the vow books.

Tanner and Laken sat facing each other at the table. There was no officiant, no ceremony structure, no signal to begin. They opened their books and started reading. Laken went first. Then Tanner. I stayed at a distance with a telephoto lens, 85mm at f/1.4, shooting through the gap between the terrace railing and the edge of a potted plant to give them the privacy the moment deserved, an approach I detail further on my Ravello wedding photographer page. The shallow depth of field blurred the coastline behind them into a wash of blue and green, keeping the focus tight on their faces and their hands on the table between them.

This is the frame that defines the gallery. Two people at a small table, the coast stretching out behind them, their vow books open, no audience. The light was warm and low, coming from the side, which lit their faces in a way that a higher sun would not have allowed. The wine glasses on the table caught the light and threw small reflections onto the stone surface, a detail I included in a few close-up frames of their hands and the open pages of the vow books.

The whole exchange lasted about fifteen minutes. When they finished, they stood up, hugged, and looked out at the sea for a while without saying anything. I kept shooting. The silence after the vows is often where the strongest expression happens, the moment when the weight of what they just said settles in. Tanner put his arm around Laken and they watched the boats moving below Minori. The sky was starting to shift from afternoon blue to the first hints of warm gold. I shot a few final frames of them at the railing with the full panorama behind them, and then I put the camera down and left them alone on the terrace.

Why a Private Vow Exchange Works

I photograph a lot of elopements and proposals in Ravello, and a private vow exchange sits in its own category. It is not a replacement for the wedding. Tanner and Laken went home to Indiana and had their full celebration with 200 guests a few months later. The vow exchange is the part of the commitment that belongs only to the couple, spoken in private without the pressure of an audience or the formality of a ceremony structure.

There is no paperwork, no legal requirement, no officiant to book. You choose where and when, you write your own words, and you read them to each other. The entire thing takes fifteen to twenty minutes. What makes it worth traveling to Ravello is the setting: the altitude, the quiet, the view, the sense that you are somewhere outside of your normal life, which makes the words feel different than they would in your living room.

If this format appeals to you, Palazzo Confalone is the venue I recommend first for vow exchanges and elopements because the scale is right and the terrace gives you the coast without the cost of a hotel buyout.