Oeschinensee
Scale, light, and a good sense of lingering at an alpine lake.
Elopement Photography
An alpine lake held in a ring of cliffs. Cows on the shore in summer, ice fishing in winter, and a stillness the Alps don’t give up often. It’s clear why Oeschinensee is a tourist favourite. I love visiting during the day, especially in winter – but there is something magical about spending the night at the lake. I tell my Switzerland elopement couples to stay a night if they can, even when the elopement itself is elsewhere.
Since 2025, the landowners at Oeschinensee have restricted commercial photography – weddings and elopements included – to protect the flora and fauna from the pressure of overtourism. Drone use was disturbing the cliffs where the bearded and griffon vultures nest, but a drone ban alone couldn’t hold the wider strain on the landscape. The rules have widened. It’s an evolving situation, and what’s true this year may shift by next. If your heart is set on Oeschinensee specifically, write to me with your date and I’ll check where things stand for your window.
Switzerland has around 1,500 lakes. The wider Alps hold many more. Most are quieter than Oeschinensee ever was, and part of what I do is knowing which one behaves how – where the light lands late, where the water reads differently by month, where the trail thins out once the last cable car has gone down.
The closest match to what Oeschinensee gave is either Trübsee or Seealpsee. Both are alpine lakes where an overnight puts you on the shore before and after the day-visitors, with the same rhythm Oeschinensee held. Trübsee is the easier way in, by cable car, when the hotel is open. Seealpsee is a real hike, the arrival is part of its charm.
Gelmersee is a morning visit – turquoise water held in raw granite. Most funicular visitors stay near the dam; a short walk along the shore leaves them behind. The only other people out there in the morning are hikers passing through toward the nearby mountain hut.
Brienz and Thun are more public. Some places and hours give themselves over quietly; other times, you share the shore with a few well-wishers who happen to be there too. Woven into an elopement anchored somewhere the seclusion is already secured – an overnight, or a private-land arrangement – those lakes add open water and wider light the alpine lakes don’t.
There are others too – lakes that come in for a morning or a hike, depending on the date and where the day is anchored. Which lake for which couple depends on more than the page can hold.
Years from now, a good photograph doesn’t just show you the lake. You can still feel whether it was warm or cold, hear what the day sounded like up there, sense what was in the air, and what it felt like to be there together.
She is able to find the intersection of natural beauty and human love so effortlessly through her photography. — Garrett, Swiss Alps, 2025
My work is anchored in Patgific – a 300-year-old Romansh concept from Graubünden about slowing down enough to really enjoy what’s in front of you. I’ve spent years across the Swiss Alps, and part of the work is knowing which lake behaves how, and when.
Raised in a painter’s studio, I look for where the landscape builds its own architecture. Alpine lakes do this in their own quiet way – a bowl of peaks around a still surface, a granite wall doubling itself in turquoise water.
“Her work is for those who want their day held with clarity, where moments remain recognisable to themselves, even as they take on the quiet weight of memory.” — The Lane
I take only a very small number of couples in the Swiss Alps each year, so that every day gets the attention and the hand-edited care it asks for.
Most choose an overnight – a mountain hut or lakeside cabin, the light going long in the evening, the dark, and then the shore to yourselves at first light while the day-trippers are still far below. Around nine hours of photography across it. €8000.
Coffee in the morning mist, the light going long by evening, and being so present you forget to document it (luckily, I did).