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

Alison and Kyle were married at the FitzHaven Estate at Lake Tahoe on one of the most popular dates of the year,  9-10-11. They were a great couple to work with and the day flowed effortlessly from the getting ready candids through the reception, even during that short period of rain! The sky got darker as the day unfolded, but that didn’t put a damper on their moods or their day. The ceremony was beautiful, and the sky waited until the last of the post ceremony portraits were done to open up and give us a drizzle, then a pouring of rain for about a half hour during the cocktail hour. It didn’t really faze anyone, the tables were covered, some guests danced in the rain, others mingled under the tent – next to the bar, it was perfect. Once the thunderstorm passed, as they always do in Tahoe, the tables and chairs were wiped down, introductions were made, and everyone sat down at long wooden tables overlooking the lake for a fabulous family style meal prepared by D’Lish Catering. I am dividing this wedding into 2 posts, I just had sooooo many images I wanted to share. Alison and Kyle decided to see each other for their portrait session with their wedding party down at the lake before the ceremony. So this first post will be a bit of the girls getting ready, the portraits at the lake, and then a few of them back at the FitzHaven. My next post will be the ceremony and reception, including a ton of delicious details. Enjoy!

Part 2: FitzHaven estate wedding ceremony, details and reception.

This is no joke, a few years back I actually photographed a bear who visited the Fitzhaven right before the ceremony!

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!

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Betsy and Marcus got married at Edgewood Golf and Country club in beautiful South Lake Tahoe in the middle of September. During the shoulder season, as we call it, you never know what mother nature is going to throw at you in the mountains. The day started off warm and sunny, then proceeded to high winds and thunderstorms just before the wedding. Then, literally right as Betsy started down the isle, the sun came out. Then it rained some more, then we got the most amazing rainbow and sunset. All in all, the perfect wedding day.

Betsy putting the finishing touches on her hair and makeup.

Marcus gets some visitors while doing his pictures before the ceremony.

Their ceremony was on the north room deck.

They had a large wedding party which made for some fun compositions.

I shot a quick couple of pictures with a Nikon D300 I had converted to shoot in the infra-red spectrum

After a brief thunderstorm, we went back out at sunset for some amazing light.

Did I mention amazing light? I forgot to add rainbows. Don't ever be afraid of a prediction for rain or snow on your wedding day, my favorite pictures almost always come from situations like that.

We thought the sky would light up red, but it didn't. However I really like the deep blue of a post-sunset sky. In this case I lit Betsy and Marcus with an off-camera strobe light, snooted to focus the beam of light only on them.

The grooms brother making a toast. Or was it a roast.....

Here you see an overview of the north room at Edgewood during the toasts.

First dance

Brett the DJ had folks dancing the whole time.

Group shots.

The groomsmen finished off the night with a round of cigars.

DJ: Brett with Platinum DJ

Coordinator: Kerry Hawk with Blue Sky

The Thunderbird Lodge, really a giant stone mansion on the east shore of Lake Tahoe, is one of the most amazing of all the lake venues to get married in. It had been a couple of years since I shot there and I was so grateful that Nerissa and Reed picked me to shoot their wedding there in mid September. This couple was great! They are local business owners of Lake Monster Tattoo in South Lake Tahoe, needless to say covered in ink, and absolutely the most wonderful people you could ever meet. They also had a very defined sense of style about them, keeping the look and feel of their wedding along the lines of the 1930′s without being too rigorous about the details. We had talked about doing their album that way too. 1930′s era photography and cinematography is obviously black and white, and usually characterized by very directional lighting. I tried to keep an eye to that style while I was shooting without being too rigorous about it either. If something called for color, I kept it in color. If something was simply a good photo that didn’t fit the vintage theme, I shot it anyhow. Most of this blog post is black and white because of classic look they were going for, but some of my favorite shots are actually in color. Enjoy!

Reed getting ready

Nerissa went very elegant with her styling

The beautiful window light at the Thunderbird Lodge and a slight desaturation of colors went perfect with Nerissa's 30's era style.

We found lots of unique shooting areas. This window-lit stone hallway is actually the hallway to the bathrooms.

Nerissa wore a beautiful silk dress that fit her perfectly.

As the wedding time approached the sky got dark and it actually rained pretty hard for a short while, but not enough to force us indoors with this hardy crowd.

The groom in the card room, where such greats as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. used to come to play poker after their shows.

Getting married under the threatening clouds.

The clouds broke just as the ceremony got underway making for a great moody sky.

There were loads of cool stone paths and big trees to make pictures nearly everywhere on the property.

I loved this stone bridge.

Some of the light fixtures on the property date back to the 1920's and reminded me of Robert Doisneau's street photography from Paris during the 1930's and 40's.

We made lots of shots outdoors, but I wanted to do some photography in the non-traditional areas of the Thunderbird, like this shot in the underground opium den.

And this photo in the tunnel leading to the boat dock.

This is probably one of my favorite images. When we got out of the tunnels, the sun was setting so I had the bride and groom in the gazebo with a remote flash while I ran across the boat dock for this picture.

Despite the early rain, the group still dined lakeside out on the lawn.

The champagne was flavored with a hibiscus flower floating in it.

For the first dance, I lit the room so I could get good light from anywhere on the floor.

The reception dancing area had amazing views as the sun went down.

Sunset over the Thunderbird Lodge finished the day.