Romantic sunrise engagement photo session in Punta Cana / Haley & Alex

No one can deny that the sunrise has its own magic.

Haley & Alex had a getaway to Punta Cana last November and chose Secret Royal Beach Hotel for their romantic stay.

The hotel -located about 20’ from the Punta Cana international airport- is an upscale all-inclusive resort for adults only. The sandy beach is wide and gorgeous and the resort’s no-kid policy keeps it low key during the day, while poolside drinking competitions keep it rowdy at night. Adults looking for a relaxing day and fun night will feel at home at Secrets Royal.

It’s ideal for honeymoons, anniversaries, engagements or spending days with friends celebrating and sharing until late.

Haley found us on Instagram and liked our photography style, so she sent us a message just one week before her trip to quote for an engagement session.

Even when November was a pretty busy month for us, we were available to book her session in our calendar. So we set an exact time and we picked them up at the hotel where they were staying. We drove to a quiet beach with breathless natural landscapes, where we were able to capture some romantic portraits.

We are always asked if it’s safe to leave the resort to go outside for taking pictures and our answer is always the same, we will not be only your photographers, we love to share with you some time, get to know each other, talk about how is the life on this beautiful country, in short, we love to chat relaxing before the photos. To be honest, we’ll be sort of unofficial tour guides during your photo shoot experience.

Haley & Alex decide to have a sunrise photo session, which means we pick them up early, really early and arrive at the beach of our choice before dawn to get ready and take some photos with the sun rising.

Sunrise sessions have many benefits. Mainly, the fact that it’s not that hot. We all know that we come to enjoy the sun, but when we are dressed for a session, many times, this can make us uncomfortable. So in this case, that would not be a problem.

Also, depending on the season of the year, the presence of mosquitoes could be a real nightmare! Especially, after a certain time of the day.

If you are not an early bird, we can tell you during May to August, the days are longer, that is to say that dawns around 6am and gets dark after 7pm. On the other hand, the rest of the year, sunrise is around 7am and it gets dark around 6pm. That is to say, in this case, that the session was in November, we picked them up at their hotel around 5:45, to be able to get comfortably to a nearby public beach, get ready, and start before sunrise.

The beach we chose was located in Uvero Alto, approximately 35 minutes away from their hotel.

Uvero Alto is more Atlantic Ocean than Caribbean Sea. There are waves, tides and a significant amount of seaweed deposited along the coastline. The parts of the beach that are not maintained by resorts look almost jungle-like with greenery on the dunes and seaweed on the shore.

Another plus to book your photo session in the early morning is the quiet. Being a public beach, we do not have the presence of adults or children who may be outside the hotels.

The walks of the tourists staying in the surrounding hotels begin at approximately 8.30 or 9, so this would not be a concern to take pictures at dawn with people crossing behind.

Haley & Alex had a great time, they enjoyed their engagement session with laughter and good humor. In addition, we were able to do an extra that we both like, which is taking aerial photos with our drone. Having a memory of the wonderful beaches seen from above is an excellent souvenir for this celebration.

Thank you guys for choosing us, we had a great time with you!