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Create your account from the page for photographers with your name and email: a six-digit code, no password, no fee. Your dashboard opens straight away.

A checklist there shows what’s needed before review: About you (where you’re based, the regions and languages you work in, your style, the weddings you take on, and a few paragraphs on how you work), 3 whole weddings, and at least one package couples can book. Your calendar and payouts can wait.

Everything saves as you type, so stop and come back whenever you like. When every needed step is ticked, press Send for review.

A person on our team looks through every wedding, usually within a few days, and then approves you, asks for specific changes in a note, or says no. While we look, your profile and weddings are locked; your packages, calendar and payouts stay yours to change.

Once you’re approved, your page goes live — and your profile and weddings are yours to edit again.

A whole wedding is the day as the couple received it: getting ready, the ceremony, the family photos, the portraits, dinner and the dance floor. Upload 20 to 80 photos from each, in the order the day happened, and choose a cover.

We look at how you handle the whole day, not only its best moments: harsh midday light, a dark room, a big group, the quiet photographs in between. That is exactly what couples will look through on your page.

Choose weddings that show the work you want to be booked for, and set their order — couples see them as you arrange them. If the couple’s whole gallery is online, add the link: only our team opens it.

Pick weddings whose couples are happy to have them shown, since they’ll be public on your page once you’re approved. Photos are resized on your device before they upload, so originals of any size are fine.

The first 50 photographers we approve in Portugal get Premium free. Places go in the order we approve applications.

The first 10 are Founding photographers: Premium free for a year, and a “Founding photographer” badge on their profile for good. The next 40 are Early bird: Premium free for 6 months.

Your place, and the day your free Premium ends, are at the top of your dashboard.

When the free months end, you choose: keep Premium, move to Pro, or stay on Free. The commission is 15% for everyone, in the programme or not — the gift is visibility.

Plans buy visibility, never a lower commission: on every plan we take the same 15%, and only when you’re booked.

Free gives you your page with whole weddings, packages and free dates, and the concierge can pick you for couples.

Pro, €49 a month, puts you higher in lists and on the region pages. Premium, €99 a month, adds priority when the concierge picks three photographers for a couple.

A plan never changes who is free on a date or what anyone charges: couples see your real calendar and your own prices, whatever you pay. Paid plans can’t be bought in the dashboard yet — if you’d like one, write to us in the team chat.

A package is what couples can book: the kind of wedding, a short plain name, the price, the hours of photography, about how many photos, the delivery time in weeks, up to how many guests, what’s included, and a few lines on how the day goes with you.

The price is the full price the couple pays for that package, in your currency, everything included. Our commission comes out of the deposit, so there’s nothing to add on top.

Your lowest active package becomes the “from” price on your profile. Couples see every price converted into their own currency; you’re always paid in yours.

You can have up to 12 packages, put them in order, and hide one without deleting it. Changing or deleting a package never touches a booking already made: it keeps its price. Most photographers start with a full day and an elopement.

Couples check your calendar before they ask, so it decides which requests reach you. In Calendar, tap a day you can’t take to block it, and tap it again to free it.

You can block days up to 3 years ahead. Couples see a blocked day simply as taken — never why — and can’t send a request for it.

A day booked through Lens & Vows turns green and stays taken; it can’t be freed from here. When a couple pays a deposit, their day is blocked for everyone else at once.

Booked elsewhere, or away? Block the day straight away — or connect Google Calendar and let it do that for you.

In Calendar, press Connect Google Calendar and tick both calendar boxes on Google’s screen. We only ask for the list of your calendars and the times you’re busy — never the titles, places or guests of your events.

Then choose the calendars that count. A day becomes busy here when they hold 3 hours or more between 9:00 and 23:00 (Lisbon time), or an all-day event; a one-hour appointment doesn’t take a wedding day away.

We check every hour, two years ahead, and you can press Check now at any time. Days that come from Google are marked as such and can’t be freed here: change them in Google.

The sync never touches the days you blocked yourself or your booked weddings. Disconnect whenever you like: we give up our access at Google, and the days it marked are freed. If Google stops letting us read your calendar, the dashboard tells you — connect it again.

A new request reaches you by email and in Bookings, with the date, the place, the guests, the package, the price and your share of the deposit; the couple’s message is in Messages.

Please answer within 48 hours. Couples are told you will, and a quick answer — yes or no — lets them book, or look further while their date is still open.

Accept if the day is yours: the couple is then asked for the 30% deposit, and the date is held for them once they pay it. Decline if you can’t take it, with a line if you like (“I’m booked that day”): the couple sees it, and nothing is charged.

Need to ask something first? Write in the conversation before you answer. Until the deposit is paid, you can still decline a request you accepted.

Every request comes with a conversation, in Messages; we email you when a couple writes.

Until the couple pays the deposit, emails, phone numbers, links and social-media handles are hidden on both sides and show as […]. Please don’t try to work around it: it’s how we’re paid for bringing you the couple, and it keeps their payment protected.

Once the deposit is paid, nothing is hidden — talk however you like, and the balance can go straight to you.

The one thing we ask is that couples introduced through Lens & Vows book through Lens & Vows. Your website, your Instagram, your own clients and other platforms stay yours.

Couples pay your own price. When they book, they pay a 30% deposit by card through us. Our commission is 15% of the full price, taken out of that deposit, and we pay the card fees on it ourselves.

The rest of the deposit — 15% of the price — is yours, sent to your Stripe account 7 days after the couple pays: a window to put any mistake right. The balance, the other 70%, is yours too.

For a €3,000 wedding: the deposit is €900, of which €450 is ours and €450 is yours, and the balance of €2,100 is yours as well.

You never pay us anything yourself, and nothing at all when you’re not booked. Each booking in your dashboard shows your share of its deposit.

Your share of each deposit reaches you through Stripe Connect. In Payouts, press Set up payouts with Stripe: on Stripe’s own pages you say who you are and where to send the money — a few minutes — and you come back to the dashboard at the end. Your bank details stay with Stripe; we never see them.

The dashboard shows where you stand: details sent, able to receive payments, able to be paid out to your bank. If Stripe asks for more, it says so — and by when — and one button takes you back to Stripe to add it.

You can be approved before this is done, but a share can’t be sent until your payouts are on: it waits, and goes out as soon as they are. From Stripe to your bank takes Stripe’s usual time.

Working freelance is fine — in Portugal, with your activity open at Finanças (recibos verdes). A company is fine too.

The balance is the couple’s choice. Paid straight to you — by transfer or in cash, on your usual terms — it’s between you and them, and we aren’t involved.

Paid through us, the couple pays by card in up to 3 instalments, the last one 14 days before the wedding, plus a 5% payment-protection fee that they pay, not you.

That money waits with us until the couple accepts your gallery, or until 14 days after you deliver it, when it’s accepted automatically. Then it’s sent to your Stripe account in full: our commission was already taken from the deposit.

Paying the balance through us, and delivering galleries here, are being set up now; we’ll tell you before they open.

Before the deposit, a couple can withdraw a request at any time. You get an email, and the day stays open in your calendar.

After the deposit, your share of it stays with you: it held your date. The day is freed in your calendar so that another couple can book it.

If they’ve paid some of the balance through us, what they get back depends on how close the wedding is: all of it more than 6 months before, three quarters 3 to 6 months before, half 30 to 90 days before, and nothing in the last 30 days. What they don’t get back is yours.

A balance paid straight to you is between you and the couple, under your own contract.

Before the deposit is paid, just decline the request: nothing is owed.

After it, write to us in the team chat as early as you can. We cancel the booking, the couple gets back everything they paid through us — your part of the deposit included — and we help them find another photographer who is free on their date.

You return your part of the deposit; if it has already reached you, it’s held from your later payouts. A photographer who doesn’t turn up on the day is removed from Lens & Vows.

Illness and emergencies happen. Tell us the moment you know: the earlier we hear, the better the couple’s chances of a good replacement.

At the top of Messages there’s a pinned conversation, Lens & Vows team. It’s the quickest way to reach us about your profile, a booking, payouts or anything else.

What you write there reaches the whole team, and a person answers in the same thread; when we write to you, you get an email too.

It’s also the place to tell us about a cancellation, a date a couple wants to move, or a problem with a booking. You can email info@lensandvows.com as well, but the chat keeps everything about you in one place.

Couples see you as your first name and the initial of your last — “Inês Martins Silva” becomes “Inês S.” — on every page, card, menu and email, and even in the browser tab.

Your full name stays with our team and in your own dashboard, and your phone number is never shown to couples.

It keeps the first conversation on Lens & Vows, where the couple’s payment is protected, and keeps your full name for the couples who actually book you. Once the deposit is paid, introduce yourself however you like.

The deposit (30% of the price) is paid by card to Lens & Vows once the photographer accepts. Our commission — 15% of the full price — stays with us; the rest goes to the photographer 7 days later.

The balance (the other 70%) goes straight to the photographer if you pay them directly. If you pay it through us, it waits on our own Stripe account until you accept your gallery — or until 14 days after delivery — and then goes to the photographer in full.

The 5% payment-protection fee, on a balance paid through us, stays with us: it pays the card fees.

Nothing else is ever added: the photographer’s price is the price, and the only extra is that optional fee. Every rule is on Payment protection, with a worked example in your currency.

If you pay the balance through us, you pay a 5% payment-protection fee, shown before you pay — the same for any card, and nothing at all if you pay the photographer directly.

What it buys: the balance in up to 3 card instalments; the money held until you accept your gallery; and, if the photographer cancels, everything you paid through us back — the fee included — with our help to find someone free on your date.

It isn’t refunded if you cancel yourselves: it paid the card fees.

Paying directly is common and costs nothing extra — but money that never went through us is money we can’t give back.

Card payments go through Stripe, one of the world’s largest payment companies. You pay on Stripe’s own secure page; we never see or store your card number.

The amount and the currency on Stripe’s page are exactly those you saw on ours. Your bank may ask you to confirm the payment in its app or with a code — that’s normal for card payments online in Europe.

If anyone asks you to pay for a Lens & Vows booking another way — a transfer to an account you don’t know, or a link in an email that doesn’t lead to lensandvows.com — don’t pay, and write to us.

A refund goes back to the card you paid with, in the currency you paid in, so exchange rates don’t eat into it. It usually reaches you in 5–10 days, depending on your bank.

If your payment arrived after the date had already been taken, the refund is automatic. Otherwise a person on our team sends it, under the rules in the terms, and lets you know when it’s on its way.

We can only refund what was paid through us. Money paid straight to a photographer is between you and them, under your agreement with them.

Paying the balance straight to the photographer is fine: it’s one of the two ways we offer, and it costs nothing extra.

Skipping the deposit is another matter. If a photographer you found here asks you to book them privately instead, they’re breaking the terms they agreed to — and none of that money is protected. Tell us if it happens.

For anything you pay directly, ask for a written contract and a receipt for every payment.

Your wedding — and your booking — go ahead: rain isn’t a reason to cancel, and photographers here work in it all the time. Some of the best photographs of a day are taken under umbrellas.

The real plan is made months before: a covered space at the venue, an agreed time to make the call, and a word with your photographer about where you’d go for portraits and whether they can stay longer if the day shifts.

Eloping, with room to move? Your one free change of date can take you to a drier day, if the photographer is free on it.

Our rain plan goes region by region, with what to agree with your photographer — and the heat and wind plans people forget.

Sometimes the day is taken out of everyone’s hands: a storm warning, a wildfire near the venue, closed borders.

The first thing to try is your free change of date: if the photographer is free on the new day, the booking simply moves, with everything you’ve paid.

If it’s the photographer who can’t come, it counts as their cancellation, and everything you paid through us comes back to you.

For anything else, write to us. There’s no separate rule for these cases, so a person looks at yours with you and the photographer — and nothing in our terms limits your rights under the law.

There are three ways to marry in Portugal: a civil wedding, a Catholic one, or a symbolic ceremony, which isn’t a legal marriage but can be held almost anywhere, at any hour.

The civil route goes through a Conservatória do Registo Civil and needs papers — birth certificates among them, often legalised and translated — so start early. Many couples from abroad marry legally at home and hold the ceremony that matters to them here.

Getting legally married in Portugal walks through each way, the usual documents and a timeline. It’s general information, not legal advice: the Conservatória has the final word on your case.

As soon as you know the date and the place. Saturdays in the high season — May, June and September — are the first to go, and a photographer can only be at one wedding a day.

You can send a request for any day from two days to three years ahead. A request alone doesn’t hold the day: the deposit does.

No exact date yet? Use the concierge with just the month, look through whole weddings, save the photographers you like, and send the request as soon as the venue confirms your day.

Look for elopement packages: see the photographers for elopements, filter all photographers by kind of wedding, or tell the concierge it’s just the two of you.

Elopement packages are usually a few hours, and many photographers know the clifftops, dunes and vineyards that suit one — and when the light is good and the crowds are gone.

Some public places need a permit, and drones have rules of their own: ask the photographer what they usually arrange. How to plan an elopement in Portugal covers places, timing and what to ask.

Portugal is small, but its regions are very different: the palaces of Lisbon & Sintra, the vineyards of Porto & Douro, the dunes of Comporta, the country houses of the Alentejo, the cliffs of the Algarve, and the islands of Madeira and the Azores. Each region has a page with its photographers, places and seasons.

For most of the mainland, the gentlest months are May–June and September to early October; the islands and the Algarve have longer seasons. See the best months, region by region.

Then choosing a venue has the questions to ask on a visit — the light at ceremony time, and a covered space for plan B.

Use the form at the end of this page, or email info@lensandvows.com. Write in English or Portuguese: a person reads every message and answers by email.

If it’s about a booking, give the photographer’s name and your wedding date, so we find it at once.

Photographers: the pinned Lens & Vows team conversation in your dashboard reaches all of us, and keeps everything in one place. Questions for a photographer go in the conversation on your booking page.

The site is in English and European Portuguese: switch at the top of any page, under country, language and currency. Our team writes in both.

Each photographer lists the languages they work in. Filter all photographers by language, and the concierge takes it into account when it picks.

Most couples from abroad write to photographers in English; Portuguese couples can do everything here in Portuguese.

An account is an email address, with no password. A new account becomes a photographer’s only when it’s created from the page for photographers, and opens a dashboard; any other new account is a couple’s, with a My wedding page.

An account keeps its kind, so a photographer planning their own wedding should use a different email for it.

Continue with Google signs you into the same account as your email code when the addresses match. To change the email on an account, write to us.

We collect as little as we can and sell nothing. The privacy notice says what we keep, why, who helps us run the site, and for how long.

You can ask for a copy of your data, or for it to be corrected or deleted: write to info@lensandvows.com from your account’s email. Some records — a paid booking, for instance — we must keep for a while by law, and we’ll tell you if that applies.

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