Winery weddings and photo sessions in Mendoza and the Valle de Uco

A winery wedding in Mendoza is a ceremony and party held at a bodega in the vineyards of Luján de Cuyo, Maipú or the Valle de Uco, with the Andes as the backdrop, and its photography starts at $1,400 here for an 8-hour day with 500 edited photographs delivered within 6 weeks. A shorter session among the vines — an elopement, an engagement shoot or portraits on a wine trip — starts lower. What shapes every one of them is the same set of things: the season of the vines, the hour at which the sun drops behind the mountains, the wind, and the winery's own conditions for outside vendors.

The coverage and what it costs

The last line is for wineries rather than couples: vineyard, cellar, team and product photography for a bodega's own website and labels.

Two wine regions, two kinds of day

Luján de Cuyo and Maipú, just south of the city of Mendoza, are the older wine districts, with historic bodegas, tasting rooms and hotels close to town. A wedding there keeps the travel short, and guests can stay in the city.

The [Valle de Uco](/cities/valle-de-uco), in Tupungato, Tunuyán and San Carlos, is a longer drive south-west, higher and closer to the mountains, with newer wineries set among vineyards that run up to the foothills. The view of the cordillera is the reason couples choose it, and it also means that a wedding day there has the guests, the photographer and the vendors staying on site or on the road.

The vine calendar and the vendimia

The vendimia, the grape harvest, falls in late summer and early autumn, and it is the busiest time of the year for a winery: picking crews in the rows, trucks at the cellar door and the whole team at work. Some bodegas welcome a harvest wedding and some keep those weeks for the harvest alone, so the first question to a winery is whether it hosts events during its picking dates. The Instituto Nacional de Vitivinicultura publishes the data for each vendimia, province by province, on its harvest page. The Fiesta Nacional de la Vendimia, the provincial festival in the city of Mendoza, has its dates set each year by the province, so check the official calendar before you fix a date that would compete with it for hotels.

Light behind the mountains

The Andes rise to the west of every Mendoza vineyard, so the sun sets behind the cordillera before it reaches the flat horizon. The warm hour arrives early and ends early, and the last light comes from behind the peaks rather than across the vines. A ceremony placed for that light is timed to the mountain, not to the official sunset. Mendoza has about 14 hours of daylight near the December solstice and about 10 near the June solstice, approximate figures computed from its latitude; a summer ceremony in the last light starts late in the evening, which suits the Argentine dinner hour.

The Zonda wind

The Zonda is the hot, dry wind that comes down from the Andes into Mendoza, and it can turn a calm afternoon dusty within hours. The Servicio Meteorológico Nacional (SMN) issues weather alerts through its early warning system, available on its page, and the forecast is checked during the week before the date. A winery wedding plan has an indoor alternative — the cellar, the barrel room or a covered terrace — agreed with the venue in advance, and a drone stays on the ground when the wind is up.

What to ask the winery

This guide quotes no winery's conditions for an outside photographer, because each bodega sets its own, so they come from the winery's events team, in writing, before you sign:

• whether outside photographers and videographers are allowed, and whether a fee or a registration applies;
• whether a certificate of liability insurance is required from each vendor;
• which parts of the property can be photographed: vine rows, the cellar, the barrel room, the production area;
• whether a drone may fly, and from where;
• the times the vineyard can be reached for portraits, especially during the harvest;
• whether a vendor meal is served.

Drones over the vines

Most Valle de Uco wineries sit in rural airspace, where a drone in the Open category is at its simplest, but the city's airport puts the districts nearest Mendoza closer to a control zone. Under RAAC Part 101, a drone stays out of every aerodrome control zone and never flies over a person who is not taking part and has not consented, so the guests at a seated ceremony are filmed from the side. The drone guide has the full rules.

The legal part

A wedding at a winery is a celebration; the marriage itself is legal only when it is celebrated before an officer of the Registro Civil. Couples who live abroad often marry at home and hold a symbolic ceremony among the vines. The guide to getting married in Argentina as a foreigner explains the options, and the best time for photos guide compares Mendoza's seasons with the rest of the country. The wedding page for Mendoza shows what a day there looks like. When you have a winery and a date, send us both.