Why I Ditched The Wedding world
This is the story of how I went from shooting weddings in Pittsburgh PA to planning and photographing elopements in Chile
I'm a 40 some years young Aries, born and raised in Chile. I lived in the United States half of my life (and the other half in Chile).
Until 2020, I worked as a wedding photographer in Pittsburgh for a few years…. but…. I was not quite in love with the whole wedding world.
There’s nothing more magical than photographing couples in love, but I always saw the wedding industry as wasteful and self-centered.
Weddings create more drama and debt than we wanna admit, and while I loved being a wedding photographer, the waste around a wedding day never really resonated with me, despite loving my job, I had conflicting views about it, so the only way I could tolerate the wedding world was to give it a more intentional twist, which, thanks to the incredibly generous couples who hired me, we were able to do, by gathering the untouched leftover food from wedding days, to feed homeless people.
Later, we realized hotel toiletries from weddings were being left behind, so with the help of brides, grooms, and wedding parties, we collected these items and made toiletry kits for women on the streets.
At some point in 2019, we had collected way more hygiene kits than we needed in Pittsburgh, so it was time to share them elsewhere, and when I heard about the crisis at the Southern Border, I decided to ship them there.
Although I was an immigrant myself, up until that moment, I had always lived on the Eastern coast, so I was unaware of what took place at the Southern border.
At first, we intended to ship one hundred, but word got around, and we gathered 500… then things got a little bit out of control, the whole town came to help, and we gathered over 3k of these hygiene kits.
I named this project Worth Manifesto to remind everybody that everybody has their worth.
Since we gathered so much help, I could no longer simply ship things to the border, that is how I ended up there.
at “the wall”
The first thing I noticed was the lack of media coverage, yet the news were filled with stories that didn't match reality.
The second thing I noticed was the devastating chaos of the situation there.
I began to travel back and forth between Pittsburgh and McAllen TX, and then became an advocacy speaker about the reality at the border, all while still photographing weddings.
And here is when things started to take a different tone for me…
If I had conflicting views before, it became worse after my experience at the border.
It was hard to go from seeing extreme poverty at the border, where people often arrived naked, and mothers would fight for a tarp to sleep on with their children, to the extravagance of weddings.
Here I was, in the midst of this dilemma, when suddenly, the pandemic came, and a few months later, I got diagnosed with uterus cancer.
It became clear to me that it was time to take a break and move back home.
This is how I decided to permanently relocate to Chile and start Elope Chile, for me, the opportunity to continue doing the job I deeply love, but now without the bells and whistles of the wedding world.
Now I get to share the knowledge and experience accumulated during the 12 years photographing traditional weddings around the world.
I show others the beauty of my country from a non touristic perspective, and I get to connect with couples looking to elope in Patagonia, Easter Island, Atacama, who are seeking nothing fancy, just love :)
If any of this resonated with you, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me and lets ditch the wedding world!
