TOM AND HILDEGARD

AN INTIMATE WEDDING IN THE
CAPRIVI, NORTHERN NAMIBIA

Some weddings you photograph. Others, you find yourself quietly living inside of for a few days — and Tom and Hildegard's was very much the second kind. Tom, from France, and Hildegard, born and raised right here in Namibia, brought their two worlds together for an intimate wedding of just sixteen people, unfolding over three unhurried days at Chobe River Camp in the Caprivi (part of the Gondwana Collection). By the end of it, I felt less like the photographer and more like one of the guests.

Chobe River Camp sits right on the banks of the Chobe River, its tented chalets built from Mopane timber and canvas, each one opening onto the wide floodplains that stretch out along the water. It's a part of Namibia defined by wildlife rather than dunes or desert: elephants and buffalo moving through the floodplains, boat cruises drifting past giraffes, kudus, crocodiles and hippos at the water's edge, the kind of scenery that makes for genuinely unscripted, breathtaking wedding photographs. For an intimate Caprivi wedding surrounded by real, wild Africa, it's hard to imagine anywhere better suited.

This one was personal for me in a way not every wedding is. I grew up in the Caprivi, and photographing a wedding on that same river, under that same wide sky, brought a kind of quiet joy I wasn't expecting going in. There was something fitting about it too: a Frenchman and a Namibian woman choosing to begin their life together on the very land she calls home, with her country's wildlife and rivers standing witness. Tom and Hildegard were extraordinarily sweet throughout, the kind of couple who made everyone around them feel instantly included, and across three unhurried days together, that warmth only grew.

If an intimate, wildlife-filled wedding somewhere along Namibia's rivers sounds like the celebration you're picturing, I'd love to help you plan one of your own.