Weddings at the Hotel Excelsior

Facing the city instead of standing in it

Almost every Dubrovnik venue puts you inside the Old Town, where the walls are magnificent and the crowd is somebody else's. The Excelsior does the opposite. It sits on the shore just east of the Ploce gate and looks back across the water at the whole walled city, which means the city becomes a backdrop you own rather than a stage you share.

That geometry pays off at exactly the right hour. Dubrovnik faces roughly southwest from this angle, so in the last hour the limestone catches the light full on and goes gold while the terraces you are standing on fall into soft shade. Backdrop lit, subjects soft. It is a photographer's arrangement and it is the reason this address keeps its reputation.

The terraces, and what each is for

• The Palm Terrace, the principal outdoor event space, open to the sea with the walls across the water and Banje beach beside it. This is the ceremony and the long summer evening.
• The terrace at Restaurant Salin, which seats around a hundred and twenty for a gala dinner and holds one of the best Old Town views in the city.
• Abakus, the piano bar and restaurant, with four metre glass walls onto a panoramic terrace, which is the weather contingency that does not feel like one.
• The shoreline and Banje beach, immediately below, for the blue hour frames with the city lit behind.
• The Ploce gate and the eastern lanes, five minutes on foot, for the couple portraits once the ships have gone.
• Lokrum, ten minutes by boat from the old port, for the day after.

Cruise ships, and how to beat them

Dubrovnik's crowding is entirely predictable, which makes it manageable. Ships berth at Gruz and their passengers fill the Stradun from mid morning until the late afternoon recall. From about five the town begins to empty, and between seven and nine it is warm, golden and comparatively quiet. Every portrait plan we make in this city is built to land in that window, and the published cruise schedule for your date is something we check before anything is fixed rather than after.

The alternative is first light, which is emptier still and photographs the Stradun as a polished empty corridor, though it asks an early start of a couple who were dancing at one in the morning. For most weddings the evening window is the answer and the dawn session is the optional extra.

The Croatian civil file, which is straightforward, is set out in our Croatia field notes. The city's other venues are compared in our Dubrovnik shortlist, and what photography costs here is in the Croatia cost guide.

More on photographing this coast lives in our Croatia field notes. Coverage and pricing are with the editions, and the commission sheet is one page away.