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

The FitzHaven Estate in North Lake Tahoe was the perfect venue for Alison and Kyle’s beautiful September wedding. A few rain drops came and went, and they had an amazing evening filled with a family style dinner created by D’ Lish Catering, toasts, and dancing into the darkness. The couple decided to see each other before the wedding,  and their lake front Tahoe wedding portraits can be seen in Part 1 of the blog post.

Iced tea and Arnold Palmers greeted guests as they arrived at the FitzHaven Estate for the ceremony

A new twist on the sand ceremony, do it with spices instead!

Kyle and Alison gave a toast to all their guests immediately after the ceremony

Alison's family winery provided several types of wine for the reception. I later received a bottle of the Syrah Rosé in the mail, and it was fabulous!

Some of the appetizers from D'Lish catering: shrimp topped polenta and duck corn dog bites

Raindrops fell during the cocktail hour, but the tables were soon covered, then wiped down before dinner was served, and the party continued unhindered.

Kyle and his guests took a moment to savor the rain drops

Introducing the newly married couple

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!

It has been a long while since we have posted any images from our photo booth shoots, so here are some from one of our recent weddings at the Chateau in Incline Village. Our photo booth is not really a photo booth in the traditional sense of the word. There is a great local company called Reno Photo Booth, that will bring the machine you sit in and lots of props and will take care of getting you the small, photo-sequence printouts on the spot. What our photo booth consists of is basically a mini-studio that we set up in a corner of your reception venue, where we have nice, soft studio lighting, a backdrop of your choice and some props. We have done these shoots for a few years now without props, and since I actually man the camera, I manage to get some great shots of people by working with them to get their personalities to shine through. Recently we had a really wild couple hire Monique and I to shoot our package that included the photo booth. They brought loads of props on their own, including several toy machine guns. People had so much fun playing with all this stuff that we decided to trade them some big prints for the whole box of props. We brought them out to this wedding without really saying anything, just to see how people would take to them and I no sooner had the booth set up then we had a line of people trying on different props. So I we have added and expanded the prop box, and now truck it along anytime somebody has our photo booth at their wedding. These images are shot on the same high, quality camera we use for all the wedding photography, so your photos are not available right then and there, but when you do get them along with the rest of your wedding pictures, they are super-high quality images that can make great wall prints or anything else you may desire. I like the black and white effect for most of the photo booth images, but the originals are always in color, so you have a choice.

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