M+A from NantesSeychelles Islands Wedding and Underwater Honeymoon photos
Praslin & La Digue
Seychelles - December 2024
Above: Honeymoon video teaser of M&A by Il était un Pixel in Seychelles, 2024
Below: Photos by Il était un Pixel
Some stories begin at a wedding fair and end at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. M and A's is one of them. When we met at a small wedding fair, they leafed through my album, and it was the destination work and the underwater images, couples photographed beneath the surface, that made everything click: they had spent a year traveling the world themselves, during which he became a diving instructor in Bali. Two people who had lived at the far end of the planet with fins on their feet had just found a photographer who works underwater. They booked me on the spot for their wedding, celebrated at Domaine de la Chopinière in Vendée, and then came the beautiful, slightly mad idea: the three of us would travel during their honeymoon, for photographs abroad, and above all beneath the water.
Months of preparation, one lost suitcase
A serious underwater project is not improvised: we prepared for months, down to training sessions at their freediving club and real-sea tests in Les Sables-d'Olonne, dress included. I flew out loaded with freediving equipment: wetsuit, weight belt to hold position at depth, and my specific freediving fins, which cannot be found just anywhere.
Then the airline lost my suitcase. All of it. In the Seychelles you can only find scuba equipment, not freediving gear: no fins like mine, no weights, no wetsuit in my size. What remained was my cabin bag: my camera gear for dry land, and, for the water, an action camera. So we made do, and it became one of my favorite stories to tell: the underwater images from that trip, made freediving in swim shorts with an action camera, are among those that went on to win international awards. The lesson fits in one sentence: gear helps, but preparation, an eye, and a couple willing to play are what make the image.
Four days of photographs, three islands
Across their three-week honeymoon we devoted four full days to photography, spread over Praslin, Mahé and La Digue, with escapes to gorgeous corners all the way to Coco Island. The Seychelles hand a photographer an almost unfair set: those granite boulders resting on white sand, water so transparent that the border between "in the water" and "on the water" goes deliciously blurry, and an end-of-day light that turns every beach into a studio.
The dress in turquoise water, portraits at the surface line, weightless frames beneath the swell: everything we had rehearsed in Vendée found its stage.
It was not my first time in the archipelago either: I had worked there years earlier, including wedding photographs made from a helicopter above the islands. The Seychelles rank among my favorite places on Earth, and this three-person honeymoon remains one of my most treasured memories as a photographer.
Wedding Team
Photo/Video: Il était un Pixel, Jérémie
Venue 1: Domaine de la Chopinière
Venue 2: Constance Lemuria Praslin
Hair: Canelle coiffure mariage
MUA: Cil etait une fois
Dress: Atelier Emelia
Shoes: Un si beau pas
What the archipelago teaches
A craft note the Seychelles hammer home: granite is a reflector. Those famous boulders bounce warm light back into faces during the golden hour, which makes the last ninety minutes of day almost unfairly flattering, and the first hour after sunrise its equal with the beaches empty.
We built all four photography days backwards from those two windows, swam and scouted in between, and the schedule never once felt like work to the newlyweds, which is the real trick of honeymoon sessions: the photographs must remain a holiday.
And What about your Honeymoon?
If your wedding dreams of a second chapter on the far side of the world, dress in the suitcase and portraits beneath the surface, this is a house specialty: the Seychelles guide covers the destination in depth, and my travel dates make the idea more reachable than couples expect. And this is not the only guide, I in fact have dozen of those, Maldives, Tahiti and french Polynesia, Bali, Santorin, feel free to browse all of those!
