Izzy and Stephan weren't originally planning to get married in Iceland. Their wedding was supposed to happen in Florida.
Then 2020 happened.
Plans changed, international travel became complicated and the wedding they'd expected to have was suddenly no longer the wedding available to them.
So they made a fairly significant pivot. They came to Iceland instead. And within a relatively short planning window, we turned that change of direction into something completely different: a legal ceremony beside Seljalandsfoss during Iceland's midnight sun season.
From a Florida Wedding to an Iceland Elopement
Izzy and Stephan were coming from Germany, and when Iceland became an option, there wasn't an elaborate Iceland itinerary sitting ready in a folder somewhere.
What they knew was that they wanted to say “I do” at Seljalandsfoss.
The rest needed putting together. Because they wanted to be legally married in Iceland rather than hold a symbolic ceremony, the practical side mattered too. Their marriage paperwork had been sent ahead in the weeks before the wedding.
From there, I helped build the rest of their elopement around them, including location suggestions, the timeline and what they would actually need with them on the day. I also connected Izzy with Ásthildur for her hair and makeup.
This wasn't the wedding they'd originally expected to plan. But that didn't mean it needed to feel like the consolation version.
Getting Legally Married Beside Seljalandsfoss
Their ceremony itself was legal, with an Icelandic officiant there to marry them. Then Izzy and Stephan read their vows to each other beside the waterfall.
And Seljalandsfoss has one slightly unexpected advantage when you're trying to say something personal. It's loud. Really loud. The falling water creates a surprising amount of privacy around your words. Your officiant and photographer can give you physical space, but the waterfall itself helps keep what you're saying between the two of you.
For a couple who had already changed so much about how their wedding would happen, this part could still remain completely theirs.
Why We Used the Late Evening
Izzy and Stephan married in June. At that time of year, darkness doesn't really arrive in South Iceland. Instead, the evening stretches. That gave us the freedom to hold their ceremony later rather than trying to squeeze everything into conventional wedding hours.
The light around their ceremony was soft and low, but the day wasn't disappearing underneath us. That's one of the things I love about Iceland's summer. You don't necessarily need to design an elopement around what 2 PM is supposed to look like.
The light gives us other options. And sometimes those unconventional hours are exactly what a location needs.
Their Empty Seljalandsfoss Was Not Normal
There's something very important I would add to Izzy and Stephan's story now that we're looking back at it several years later.
I would not promise another couple the Seljalandsfoss experience you see in these photographs. Their wedding happened under extraordinary circumstances.
Iceland had only recently begun reopening its borders after months of travel restrictions, and international visitor numbers were nothing like a normal Icelandic summer.
That meant Izzy and Stephan experienced one of South Iceland's most visited waterfalls with an amount of privacy that would be extremely unusual today. McWhirter elopements
That's part of their real story. But it isn't something I'd sell to another couple as a normal Seljalandsfoss experience.
Today, if privacy matters, we'd need to plan differently. Timing becomes part of the strategy rather than something we leave to chance.
The Location Can Stay the Same While the Strategy Changes
This is one of the reasons old Iceland wedding photographs need context. You can look at Izzy and Stephan standing beside an almost empty Seljalandsfoss and think: Perfect. We'll do that.
But the conditions surrounding a location change. Visitor numbers change. Access changes. Weather changes. And occasionally the entire world changes.
The job isn't to recreate somebody else's photograph. It's to understand why their experience worked, then figure out what would create that feeling for you under the conditions we actually have now.
For Izzy and Stephan, an unusually quiet Seljalandsfoss happened naturally because of the year in which they married.
For a couple planning now, I'd approach privacy there very differently.
Their Plan Changed. The Meaning Didn't.
What I like most about Izzy and Stephan's story isn't that they somehow found a way to reproduce the Florida wedding they'd lost.
They didn't. They did something else.
They travelled to Iceland. They completed the paperwork. They stood beside a waterfall late in the evening. They made their marriage legal. And they said the things they wanted to say to each other with enough roaring water around them that those words could stay private.
Their wedding changed enormously from the version they'd first imagined.
But the part that actually mattered still happened.
They got married.
Planning a Summer Elopement in Iceland
Izzy and Stephan's wedding is a useful example of what Iceland's long summer days can give us.
Not simply more hours to fit more locations into the timeline.
More choice about when things happen.
That can mean slowing the day down. Having dinner before your ceremony. Waiting for a busy location to settle. Taking a long break because the light isn't going anywhere. Or choosing an unconventional ceremony time because it creates a better experience.
That's how I prefer to use Iceland's summer daylight.
Not to squeeze more into the wedding. To give us more room around it.
If you're considering getting married here during summer, you can read more in my Summer Elopements in Iceland Guide.
