The Wedding Drone

The Wedding Drone

I’d filmed plenty of weddings before — beachside ceremonies with sunsets so perfect they looked fake, hilltop vows with doves released on cue. But nothing quite matched the Elridge-Barron affair.

The location alone was worth a magazine spread: a private cove on the Amalfi Coast, where turquoise waves curled into a crescent of sand, cliffs rising on either side like stone walls. White roses climbed trellises. Gold chairs shimmered under the Italian sun. A quartet tuned up in the background while waiters in crisp linen poured champagne.

My job was simple: fly my drone, capture the grandeur, and make sure the bride looked ethereal.

I launched the drone as the guests began to arrive. Through my monitor, the scene was pure elegance — a carpet of white petals lining the aisle, guests in pastel finery, sunlight painting everything in honey tones. The drone soared higher, panning wide to capture the cliffs on either side of the cove.

That’s when I saw it.

A figure, high on the north cliff, standing just at the edge.

They were too far to make out clearly, but the posture struck me — perfectly still, facing the ceremony. The zoom on my drone wasn’t meant for surveillance, but I tried anyway. The image pixelated: tall, thin, unmoving.

I assumed it was a curious hiker. Maybe even security. Rich weddings sometimes had guards keeping an eye out for paparazzi.

The ceremony began.

The bride walked down the aisle, her veil catching the light like spun sugar. My drone hovered to the side, gliding along the line of guests, then lifting for a sweeping shot of the cove. I angled for a frame that included both cliffs — the symmetry was too beautiful to ignore.

The figure was still there.

Exactly where they’d been before.

I thought about radioing security, but I was a vendor, not part of the staff. My job was to make beauty, not deal with oddities. I adjusted my angle to keep the focus on the couple, but every time I widened the shot, the figure was in it.

After the ceremony, I got more daring. The drone climbed until the cove became a delicate arc of white sand below. Guests gathered for group shots, champagne flutes glittering. I swept toward the north cliff again.

The figure had moved.

They were closer to the edge now, leaning forward ever so slightly. No camera. No binoculars. Just watching.

I decided not to think about it until editing.

Two days later, I was back home in my studio, the ocean replaced by the hum of my computer fans. I poured coffee, loaded the footage, and began building the wedding highlight reel.

The wide shots were breathtaking — the cliffs like cathedral walls, the couple framed by sunlight. But as I scrubbed through the timeline, I noticed something unsettling.

The figure wasn’t just present during the ceremony.

They were there in every single shot that included the north cliff.

From the pre-ceremony arrival of guests, to the cocktail hour, to the final dance on the beach — always in the same spot, facing the camera. Even when I knew I’d been moving the drone, changing angles, the figure’s stance seemed… unchanged.

I zoomed in on a frame taken hours after the vows. Grainy pixels formed a vague outline: black clothing, pale face, hair whipped by the wind.

Still no camera.

Still watching.

I flipped to the final clip — a sweeping farewell shot as guests waved sparklers in the twilight. The drone curved wide, catching the cliffs silhouetted against a bruised-purple sky.

The figure had moved again.

Not away.

Closer.

Half the distance to the cliff’s edge was gone. They were leaning so far forward now it looked impossible to keep balance.

I replayed the shot three times, trying to see their face, but the light had faded too much.

Something cold slid into my stomach.

I opened my raw footage from the drone — all two hours of it. Then I noticed something worse.

Between certain shots, when the drone panned away and back, the figure wasn’t just in a new position. Sometimes their head had turned — subtly, like they were looking right at the camera.

On instinct, I checked the metadata of the files. My drone had GPS tracking for each shot.

The cliff’s coordinates were the same every time. But in the last file, a minute before I landed the drone, the GPS pinged something strange.

A second location.

Not on the cliff.

Behind me.

The drone’s wide lens had caught the last few seconds before I shut it off. In the reflection of the catering tent’s glass window, distorted by the curve, I could just make out a dark figure standing several yards behind where I’d been working.

The face wasn’t clear.

But the posture was identical.