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RECENT WORK & photography tips
The 13 Best Château Wedding Venues in France: A Photographer’s Guide to the Most Beautiful Estates in the Country There is a particular moment that happens when you arrive at a French château for the first time — when the car turns down a long allée of linden trees, the gates open, and the building […]
Château de Challain: The Ultimate Guide to One of France’s Most Extraordinary Wedding Venues The first time I drove through the gates of Château de Challain, I did what I suspect most people do: I stopped the car before I reached the courtyard and simply looked. The building rises out of the Loire Valley countryside […]
Chateau de Champlatreux : The Most Stunning Wedding Venue Right Outside of Paris There is a particular moment that happens when you turn off the highway north of Paris and the road narrows between rows of mature trees that have been growing here for centuries, and the château appears at the end of the allée […]
Château de Tourreau: A Complete Guide to Provence’s Most Celebrated Wedding Venue There is a moment that happens at Château de Tourreau that I hear about from nearly every couple and wedding professional who has experienced it. You turn off the road in Sarrians, pass through the gates, and the cypress avenue opens ahead of […]
Villa Cetinale Elopement: An Elegant Lemon-Themed Destination Elopement in the Heart of Tuscany There is a particular kind of couple that finds their way to Villa Cetinale. They have usually been to Italy before — have walked Siena’s medieval streets, have sat with a glass of Chianti watching the Tuscan hills go golden in the […]
The Best Wedding Venues in Orange County: 5 Intimate and Extraordinary Spaces for Your Celebration Orange County has a reputation for big, glossy weddings — luxury resorts on the Pacific, sprawling country clubs, grand ballrooms with chandeliers you could live beneath. And those have their place. But some of the most meaningful weddings I have […]
Santa Barbara Courthouse Distillery: An Intimate and Unforgettable Wedding Venue in the Heart of Downtown Santa Barbara Santa Barbara has been one of the cities I return to most consistently throughout my seventeen years of traveling to photograph weddings. There is something about this place that never gets old — the light, the architecture, the […]
Italian Inspired Wedding Venues in the US: 7 Extraordinary Places to Say “I Do” Without Needing Your Passport Italy does something to people. You stand in a Tuscan vineyard as the afternoon light turns the hills gold, or you sit in a Venetian courtyard listening to water echo off stone, or you walk through a […]
LET'S capture
TOGETHER
Something Beautiful
Every wedding tells a story. My job is to find the most beautiful way to tell yours. Through the candid moments that happen when no one is looking to the details you spent months choosing and the in-between frames that end up meaning the most. Art and emotion, together in every image.
BEHIND THE LENS
ABOUT Courtney
Photography found me before I found it. I grew up watching my grandfather frame a shot, learning without realizing I was learning. When my youngest was born in 2009, I picked up a camera to capture my own kids — and somewhere between the first roll and the hundredth wedding, it became the thing I couldn't imagine not doing.
What keeps me going after 17 years is the same thing that started it all: a genuine love for people and an obsession with preserving the moments that matter. I still travel the world every year to learn from the best photographers working today. Not because I have to. Because I can't imagine stopping.
© courtney bowlden photography 2026
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