Christie and Simon: A Wedding Day From the Hills to the Sea

Christie and Simon came from Florida for an elopement in Positano that ended up covering more physical ground than almost any wedding day I’ve photographed on this coast: a ceremony in the hills above Montepertuso, a long walk down through town, two separate terrace stops on the way, and finally a boat ride to Praiano and back. Most elopements here pick one or two locations and let the light do the rest of the work. Christie and Simon wanted the whole descent, mountain to sea, and asked me to help them plan a day that could actually fit all of it without falling apart on the road between one stop and the next.

Getting Ready Above Montepertuso

We started at Villa Graziella, a small hillside property a short walk from Montepertuso that locals sometimes call “a piece of paradise,” high enough above Positano that the town below reads more like a relief map than a place you could reach on foot in twenty minutes. The villa has four bedrooms built around a heated saltwater pool and a terrace that looks straight out past the cliffs toward the Li Galli islands, and coming from flat Florida, Christie and Simon both said the same thing when they first stepped onto that terrace: neither of them had ever gotten dressed with a view like it.

The detail that actually made the morning, though, wasn’t the view. It was a small stone planter shaped like a swan, tucked at the edge of the pool with pink flowers spilling out of its back, that Christie kept returning to between hair and makeup, sitting on the tiled edge with her feet in the water while she waited. I photographed her there in a loose lace robe rather than posed formality, because that swan and that particular slice of blue mosaic tile were more genuinely hers, in that moment, than anything I could have arranged.

Villa Graziella runs as a small four-bedroom property rather than a hotel, which meant no other guests drifting through the background of a shot and no front desk schedule dictating when we could use the pool deck or the garden. There’s a wood-burning oven and a barbecue tucked into the property’s small garden that I noticed on the way in, unused that morning but a reminder that this is a place built for actual living rather than a photo backdrop dressed up to look like one. The heated saltwater pool sits close enough to the terrace edge that the water and the sea beyond it read almost as one continuous surface in a few of the wider shots, the villa itself doing most of the compositional work before I’d even raised the camera.

Vows at a Wooden Fence

Their ceremony spot wasn’t a manicured terrace with a glass or wrought-iron railing, the way most elopement portfolios on this coast tend to look. It was a plain wooden fence strung with wire mesh, olive trees on the other side, terracotta tile underfoot, and a small planter of pansies at Simon’s feet as he waited for Christie to come out. The pool from earlier is actually visible behind them in several of these frames, glimpsed through the gaps in the fencing, which is a detail I only noticed properly once I was editing the gallery back home.

Simon read his vows from a folded card, holding a small unfinished wood ring box that hadn’t been sanded or stained, exactly the kind of detail I always hope a couple brings instead of a matching velvet set from a bridal registry. When he slid the ring onto Christie’s finger, his watch caught the light in a way I couldn’t have planned for, and it’s become one of my favorite close-ups from the whole day precisely because it wasn’t staged.

The Walk Down Through Positano

Getting from Villa Graziella to sea level means an actual descent on foot, and for a couple used to Florida’s flat horizon, that walk down through Positano’s stone stairways became its own kind of adventure rather than a logistical inconvenience to rush through. As a Positano wedding photographer, this is where local knowledge matters most: knowing which staircase gets afternoon shade, which turn opens onto a clean backdrop instead of parked scooters and drying laundry.

The strongest image from this stretch came at a doorway I’d never used before, a white arched entrance with a wrought-iron fanlight over it, set into a coral-pink facade thick with bougainvillea, the number five mounted beside it on a small ceramic plaque. An aloe plant in a terracotta pot held by a curling iron stand sat at the foot of the steps. Christie leaned back against the door in her slip dress, train pooling on the worn stone step below her, and the whole frame reads like a postcard that happens to have real people in it rather than a staged one.

A few flights higher up, on a stretch of stone stairway with a half-legible painted sign on the wall beside it, I caught them pausing under the shade of a low tree growing almost sideways out of the hillside, dappled light breaking across Simon’s shoulders and Christie’s hair rather than the flat, even sun most of the day had given us. Positano’s staircases change character every few dozen steps, some wide and shallow enough for two people walking side by side, others narrow enough that Christie had to gather her train against one hip just to pass a resident coming the other way. Managing that kind of pedestrian traffic, politely and quickly, is as much a part of my job on a day like this as anything I do with a camera.

A Quick Stop at Villa Magia

We paused at Villa Magia on the way down, not for a full session, just long enough for a glass of rosé on the terrace and a handful of portraits with the town’s rooftops filling the frame behind them. I’ve photographed a dozen or so weddings and elopements at this property over the years, and I know exactly which corner of that terrace catches the light best in the mid-afternoon, so we didn’t need more than fifteen minutes there before continuing down. A pot of yellow daisies on the balustrade ended up in nearly every frame from this stop, an unplanned detail that ties the whole short sequence together.

Terrazza del Sole, the Town’s Quiet Secret

The stop that surprised Christie and Simon most wasn’t Villa Magia, it was a private terrace called Terrazza del Sole, on Via Trara Genoino, that most visitors to Positano never learn exists because it isn’t attached to a hotel or restaurant. It’s mostly booked for proposals, and the owner, who I’ve worked with on and off for a few years now, let us in for twenty minutes between his other appointments.

What makes the spot work photographically is the drop itself: you’re standing almost directly above Marina Grande, close enough to see individual umbrellas and boats in the harbor below, with nothing but a low railing between you and a straight fall to the water. I asked Simon to dip Christie slightly against that railing, and the resulting photograph has more genuine vertigo in it than anything else from the day, the harbor small and far below, the two of them close and steady above it.

Terrazza del Sole works with a local florist, Floragarden Positano, for the proposals it usually hosts, and there was a small arrangement already in place from an earlier booking that morning that I used as a loose frame for a few portraits rather than something we’d requested ourselves. Access to a spot like this isn’t something a couple can simply reserve on a booking site the way they might a restaurant table. It runs on the owner’s own calendar and on relationships built up over repeated visits, which is part of why I try to keep a short list of these private terraces in mind for couples who want something beyond the well-photographed public viewpoints.

MOUNTAIN TO THE SEA

From a hillside ceremony to a sunset boat, this is a real day with an Italian wedding photographer.

SUN, STONE, SEA

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