Almost all honeymoon photos fall into one of three distinct categories:

#1 The dreaded awkward solo photo:

#2 The long-arm self portrait (a.k.a. the armpit shot):

or

#3 The I-can’t-believe-a-stranger-actually-caught-this-cool-shot-of-both-of-us:

You’re most likely to take tons of #1s and 2s, but you’ll be lucky to get even a small handful of 3s.

So what can you do to get better photos?  The answer is simple.  You’ve got to rely on a third person.  The best photos from my own honeymoon were taken by private tour guides.  (You’re less likely to get great photos if you participate in group tours when the guide has to stop and do photo shoots for each couple.)  You can arrange private tours spontaneously or in advance and there are certainly benefits to each way.

For example, Aaron and I were walking around a rice paddy in Bali when a local guy came up out of the blue and asked if we wanted him to show us around.  We said sure, why not?  Turned out to be one of the best days of our trip and our guide took some pretty great (albeit sweaty) photos of both of us.

However, if you really want to do it up, look into hiring a local photographer who doubles as a tour guide.  My cousin recently told me about Lindsey Kent and Pictours Paris.  Not only is Lindsey a professional photographer, but she can also take you on an incredible personally customized tour around Paris.  No need to worry about the language barrier (vous pouvez prendre une photo?) or getting less than mediocre photos in the end.  From the looks of the photos on her website, Lindsey knows what she’s doing behind the camera.