Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay

Gorgeous place

If you’re a bride dreaming of staying at a picturesque hotel in France and capturing some special moments in your wedding dress—think twice before booking this place. My fiancé and I fell in love with the look of this hotel and decided it would be the perfect location for our elopement photos. I reached out as early as December—both by phone and email—to ask a simple question: are elopement photos allowed on the property? When I called, no one had an answer. When I emailed, I was either ignored or given completely unrelated information, like being told I had to book the entire hotel (140+ rooms) to have a wedding—something I never asked for. With no clear answer and no information about photography restrictions on their website, we went ahead and booked our stay in February. In March, we confirmed and booked our photographer—assuming everything was fine, especially after seeing multiple Instagram posts of other brides taking photos there, even liked by the hotel’s own account. But just a week later, out of nowhere, we received an email from the hotel saying that photography was not allowed on the premises. I spent the following week in frustrating back-and-forth emails and phone calls with a manager, explaining that our nonrefundable flights and photographer were all arranged—and that our entire trip was planned around this location. I was told that I could only take photos if I wasn’t wearing a wedding gown. I repeatedly asked for the hotel’s photography policy in writing, but it was never provided. To this day, there is still no such policy listed anywhere on their website. It felt deeply unfair and discriminatory—especially since other people had clearly been allowed to take wedding photos there. In the end, we were refunded for our stay, but the emotional damage was done. We’re now scrambling to find a new location for our photos in France—and our elopement shoot is at the end of May. This hotel was supposed to be the backdrop for one of the most meaningful moments of my life—and instead, it became a source of stress, confusion, and disappointment. If you’re a bride hoping to take wedding photos at your hotel: this is not the place. I wish I had chosen a different location. I’ll never forget how this hotel took away my dream elopement photo experience due to a vague, inconsistent, and seemingly non-existent policy.