Amy and Ben got married in August at the Valhalla Grand Hall in South Lake Tahoe.  Valhalla is a great historical building at the Tallac Historical Site on US forest service land on the southern shores of Lake Tahoe. The venue offers some cool rustic simplicity with a great historical wood hall with a floor to ceiling stone fireplace, and a lot of tall trees and other old buildings on the grounds. As a historical site on forest service land, Valhalla itself can be reserved, but the site as a whole, including the beach and pier, remain open to the public, and the ceremony must be held indoors. Most of the public is gone by the time the sun sets and then you can get some nice photographs out by the water. Amy and Ben rented out rooms at the nearby Lakeland Village to get ready and then had a short drive to Valhalla afterwards. For couples that want to spend more time taking pictures prior to the ceremony, there are several nice local beaches within a mile or two of the Valhalla property.

Wedding coordinator: Heather Spear, Summit Soiree

Monique and I had a great time shooting this late fall trash-the-dress session with Megan and Tim at Sand Harbor in Incline Village. It was starting to get cold as the sun went down, but they really wanted some sunset shots and Megan was game to go into the water with her dress on, so with towels and jackets at the ready we plodded into the water with them (actually Monique did most of the plodding into the water while I stood on shore directing.) Megan and Tim had just come back from what looked like an amazing honeymoon on Bora Bora. One of the pictures they posted to their facebook page (by the way, if you are a client or potential client, click the more info tab at top left and friend Photography by Monique on facebook,) showed their vacation cottage, on stilts in the ocean at night with a swimming hatch right in the front deck and some cool blue lights illuminating the ocean under the building. This gave me the idea for some of the final pictures in the sequence where we actually bagged a flash in a watertight case and hid it in the water behind Megan to try to illuminate the ripples underwater much the way I saw from their vacation pictures. It was a fun shoot and we got some amazing shots out of it. I’m posting the images in a new photo gallery instead of inline, like we have done with all the pictures in our previous posts. Let me know if you like it, hate it, or whatever. Enjoy!

trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor trash the dress sand harbor

Kerrie and Jesse hired Scott to shoot their wedding at Edgewood Golf and Country Club in South Lake Tahoe at the end of July. This great couple couldn’t stop laughing the whole time and their joy was infectious both in their guests and wedding party, and in me. Their outdoors ceremony on the deck went off without a hitch, then a strong thunderstorm passed overhead just as guests were sitting down to eat, dumping rain and clearing the golf course. Somewhere around the end of the meal, I went outside to see what things looked like and the clouds started to part as the rain died down leaving a deep rainbow over the mountains behind the course. Knowing how fleeting rainbows can be, I mustered my best, “you’ll regret it if you don’t come with me right now,” speech and ran inside to try and convince Kerrie and Jess to drop dinner and run out in the rain with me for some rainbow pictures. The word “rainbow” had barely left my mouth when they dropped their silverware in mid-bite, and started outside. They loved the weather, playing with the wind and the rain while I was furiously framing rainbow shots before it vanished and were rewarded with some great photographs near the end of their night. Actually I can’t take much credit for this, it would have been nearly impossible to make a bad picture of these guys. Thanks!

Kerrie and Jesse had some sparklers for their send-off. We took a few outside for some long-exposure experimentation.

You all know the old adage, “When life hands you lemons….”

Ashley had been dreaming of a sunny spring wedding for quite some time, the flowers blooming, the guests enjoying themselves outdoors on the perfectly manicured lawn, first dance under the twinkle lights as the sun set. But mother nature had a different plan for the day. First came the wind. Then the rain. Then the heavy rain. Even 15 minutes before the ceremony Ashley still held out hope for an outdoor ceremony but as the rain turned to snow and the temperatures dropped and peoples breath became visible with each cold exhale, she came to a crucial decision point that would shape the entire day.

You spend a long time planning your wedding. You do your best, hire the best vendors, pick the perfect location, plan all the details, but once it is time for you to get on that dress and turn your fiance into your husband, there is nothing more you can do. You wind it up, now it is time to let it go where it will. That is the secret to a great day. I think Ashley and Dustin had the time of their lives at their wedding because instead of stressing over all the things that weren’t going as planned, they reached that crucial point and then embraced the day they were dealt with all their heart. The ceremony location changed and an impromptu marriage was held in the living room of the lodge. The tables were moved from the lawn into the general store and by God, the bride and the groom were going to have their pictures out in the rain and snow! We got wet. We dried off. We got cold, we warmed up. One of my flashes shorted out…..well, I had a spare. It was worth it because this is going to be one of those “Remember when…” weddings years from now, and since rain was a big player in the day, we went out of our way to make it a strong element in many of the pictures. It just proved to me, how much fun you have, not just at your wedding, but in life, all boils down to your perception. If you define something as fun, it is!! Enjoy, and thanks you guys for reminding me of this important lesson.

Getting the hair and makeup done in one of the 20 Mile House cabins.

Ashley watches the rain fall from the upstairs window at the 20 Mile House.

After making a last minute decision to move the wedding inside because of the rain, Ashley comes down from upstairs with her dad waiting at the foot of the steps and the groomsmen reflected in the mirror.

The impromptu indoor ceremony went off great.

After the ceremony, Ashley and Dustin ran into the back hallway for a little private celebration.

Just outside of the 20 mile house runs some nice long, straight train tracks. Ashley and Dustin really wanted to do some pictures out on the tracks and in the trees despite the rain. Personally, I think the atmospheric texture made the pictures even better.

Ashley and Dustin both seemed to enjoy playing in the rain for their pictures after the ceremony. I'm glad they did as I had a ton of fun shooting the whole portriat session in a downpour.

The couples dogs got a little wild at one point.

Some of our last portraits before fleeing inside for the reception really tried to empasise the rain. The rain really was the story of the day, so we tried to make it our own!

I love Ashley's expression in this rainy frame from their 20 mile house wedding.

Dustin shares a moment with his new father-in-law.

And shares a cigar with his dad.

There were some nice, emotional toasts going on.

Even though it was too rainy for everyone to dance outside, Ashley and Dustin did a quick first dance, then jumped off the stage.

Scott and I have a few wedding collections that include both of us as a team of professional photographers to document the complete wedding day. One of the first things we like to point out to people looking for a photographer is that we both have backgrounds as photojournalists who have working histories in the newspaper, magazine and freelance news businesses for a combined total of over 25 years. (Geeze, that makes us sound old! But when you get into the business during college and maintain that career well into your 30′s, that’s where the number comes from!) So you are getting two career photographers who know the gear, the lighting, the venues, and are able to react quickly and effortlessly to capture those meaningful moments that may even pass by so fast during the blur of your wedding, that you don’t even remember they happened until you see the images. While we have a similar history as photojournalists, we each have cultivated our own style.  Scott tends to like dramatically lit images and tries to get that look with many of his portraits by utilizing his portable studio lighting equipment, while I tend to like the look of the softer, lighter, natural light images and try to find this type of light for my portraits.  For this post, I decided to show you some images from the portrait session of the bride and groom from each of us, done almost at the same time, to give you an idea of how we work together to get different, unique images. Another thing I thought I’d do differently with this post is include several of Scott’s images from the guys “getting ready” part of the day instead of the bride’s getting ready images. Usually this is just a bit of the getting ready part, and then Scott likes to takes the guys somewhere to hang out, in this case for this Squaw Valley wedding, they went to the Irish pub the Auld Dubliner in the village for a pre ceremony drink.

Melissa and Craig’s High Camp Squaw Valley wedding

So now on to a few ceremony images, shot at almost the same time, but by each of us from a different vantage point.

The portrait session for Melissa and Craig was done in the fields next to High Camp with the golden light of the sunset washing over the scene. Again, most of the images posted show you almost the same moment, but from Scott’s perspective and mine. We started with the walk along the rocky path to get to the middle of the field of dried end-of-the-summer mules ear wild flowers. I was all about that golden wash of back lighting, so we started with these images because the sun was low in the sky, getting closer to going behind the ridge. Then, Scott saw this great dark slate-like ridge of rock with the bluest of blue sky as the background, so we moved a bit higher up the hill to where Scott had some ideas in his mind for some more portraits.

This is what I saw here:

And this is what Scott saw: