An intimate Mallorca wedding on film — Kodak Portra 400, 35mm
There are venues in Mallorca that look beautiful in photographs. And then there is Belmond La Residencia — a place that feels beautiful the moment you walk through the gate and the village of Deià appears above you, tumbling down the hillside into the olive groves.
Christina and Clayton chose La Residencia for the same reason most couples do: it is impossibly romantic without trying to be. Twin manor houses in honey-coloured stone, courtyards heavy with bougainvillea, a pool terrace overlooking the Tramuntana mountains. The kind of place where you pour a glass of wine at 5pm and forget what time it is until the sun has set.
Their wedding was small and intentional — close family, a few dear friends, and a ceremony beneath century-old trees with the Sierra de Tramuntana rising behind them. Christina got ready in one of La Residencia's stone-walled suites with the shutters open and the morning light pouring in — her dress hung in the window frame, her mother helped with the final zip in the courtyard, and for a moment the two of them were completely still. Before the ceremony, we took twenty minutes for portraits in the bougainvillea archway and along the cobblestone paths — I barely directed them, and the frames came naturally. The ceremony itself was sincere and deeply emotional — the way Christina's father held her arm walking down the aisle, the way Clayton's face changed when he saw her. And as the sun set behind the mountains, dinner moved to a candlelit terrace with long tables, warm stone, and the sound of the evening settling over Deià.
I shot the entire day on 35mm film. The Mallorcan afternoon light at La Residencia is extraordinary: it comes through the stone archways in long warm shafts, catches the bougainvillea in deep magenta, and by golden hour turns the entire courtyard the colour of apricot. Portra holds all of this — the warmth in the stone, the softness of the shade, the glow on skin — in a way that feels true to how the day actually looked and felt.
I'm Olya, a fine art film wedding photographer based in Barcelona. I photograph destination weddings, elopements, and love stories across Mallorca and the Mediterranean — every image captured on analog film so it will be cherished for generations.
