How to Private Estate Wedding

Laurel and George had a beautiful wedding at a private estate, which will remain nameless unfortunately, but that doesn't mean you can't find out where this location is at.  Throughout this couple's wedding story I will name the benefits to this wonderful wedding location and reveal tips on how to have your own private estate wedding.

I began my day with more than the usual amount of time to photograph the getting ready process.  The size of the bridal cottage gave me ample space to create several memorable portraits and detail photos. 

When I can capture the bride without disturbing the scene a sense of what the morning was like is revealed. 

The Cottage at Where Water Falls in Loma Mar, CA is a beautiful location and is surrounded by the forest.

Just before leaving for the private estate venue we had time for a portrait where I used a mirror to reflect the chandeleer behind Laurel.

While Laurel and the ladies settled in their bridal suite George and the guys relaxed in the cabin which overlooks the pond.

It was obvious to see how proud Laurel's father was to be walking her daughter down the aisle. 

Simply one of the most beautiful wedding venues I have seen, they even had a boys choir sing during the ceremony.

so many options to create great detail photos of the rings.

I love when I have the opportunity to create the illusion of a brides veil naturally dancing in the wind.

This venue sees less than half a dozen weddings annually and has hosted an Old Navy commercial and several Hollywood movies.

I love an opportunity to use my strobes to light up a couple and make them stand out from the background, the shaded forest coupled with flash also lends towards my style of a saturated look.

Florist alenawhiting@yahoo.com and Wedding Planner Lara Kreutner are true wedding professionals, we all worked as a team to keep the wedding party picture perfect all night long. 

The star of the show was the live entertainment from the Moonshiner Collective band.  They did a honest and relaxed job at emceeing the wedding; and when it was time to get the energy up they did it with 90's covers from the likes of Outkast and truly fantastic originals. 

At the beginning of dusk I quickly asked the couple to come to the heavily wooded part of the forest and shot this multi frame panorama which included the couple being strobed from ten feet away, the strobe was removed in post production.  Imagine this mega pixel image file printed large and hung on a wall.

So just because a wedding venue isn't open to the public it doesn't mean it's not available.  If you want to build your own wedding and bring your vendors to a remote location you simply need to connect with the wedding planners in the area.  There are a number of sought after planners like Laura who have a book of private unlisted venues you can choose from.  I hope you enjoyed this private estate wedding venue story, I know I sure did!