Wedding Weekly

Our Favorite Virginia Beach Wedding Venues

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There are some pretty amazing wedding venues in Norfolk, but Virginia Beach might just take the cake for most wedding venues in Hampton Roads, because there are SO MANY hotels in Town Center and the Oceanfront. For today, I’m just going to focus on venues spaces, although I will let one hotel sneak in, because Founder’s Inn is such a great spot!

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The Water Table - Virginia Beach

The Water Table is right on the marina of Rudee Inlet, making it the perfect spot for a nautical wedding! The venue has a beautiful fireplace and space for 200 people with an option for an outdoor cocktail hour space. This is the perfect venue for nautical weddings, modern weddings, and small indoor weddings. View our Water Table wedding day.

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The Attic at Watermans - Virginia Beach

If you're looking for a place to get married at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, this is it! With a ceremony out on the beach and a reception in Waterman's private upstairs space with a wall of windows facing the ocean, the Attic is sure to wow your guests! And the food is top notch! This is the perfect wedding venue in Virginia Beach for small beach weddings. View our most recent Attic at Watermans Wedding.

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The Founder's Inn - Virginia Beach

The Founder's Inn is a very popular wedding venue in Hampton Roads. And their outdoor ceremony space is truly special, facing the water and surrounded by the beautiful Colonial English gardens. Ceremonies can also be held indoors at the atrium (which is also a great spot for cocktail hour) or at Regent University's Divinity Chapel. Whether you're looking for a ballroom wedding or a garden wedding, the traditional look of Founder's Inn is a beautiful choice. And it's a beautiful hotel for your guests to enjoy as well! View our most recent Founder's Inn wedding.

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The Lesner Inn - Virginia Beach

The Lesner Inn is the perfect spot for small nautical weddings in Hampton Roads. The venue sits right on the coastal waterway of Virginia Beach, giving guests a beautiful view. Their downstairs deck gives the idea of being outdoors while being completely protected from the elements. And upstairs, they have a lovely ballroom and covered deck that gives couples a variety of ceremony and reception options. View an upstairs wedding reception and a downstairs wedding reception.

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First Landing State Park - Virginia Beach

First Landing State Park is a popular Virginia Beach location for beach ceremonies and outdoor wedding receptions. After a casual ceremony on the sand or in the ampitheater, guests can gather around the stone gazebo on the courtyard lawn for a reception. View our most recent First Landing State Park wedding.

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The Signature West Neck - Virginia Beach

The Signature West Neck is one of my favorite Hampton Roads wedding venues! This golf club has an outdoor ceremony location perfectly positioned for the setting sun. It's gorgeous! They can hold smaller receptions in their inside dining space, while larger receptions take place on their tented deck. View one of our Signature West Neck weddings.

And I can’t share my favorite Virginia Beach venues without including my favorite Chesapeake wedding venue:

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Noah's Event Venue - Chesapeake

Noah's Event Venue in Chesapeake is such a great wedding space, because it's a clean slate! The venue has two beautiful rooms connected by a lobby, the perfect space for cocktail hour. One room opens onto the courtyard for ceremonies, so it's the perfect venue for your entire wedding day! There's a field across the street for portraits and the venue has a wide variety of lighting and draping packages to make the space even more beautiful. View our wedding at Noah's Event Venue

 

 

Are you newly engaged and looking for a wedding photographer in Hampton Roads? Whether you're planning a golf club wedding day at the Signature West Neck or a nautical affair at the Water Table, I'd love to hear from you! Shoot me an email to say hello and see if I'm available for your wedding day!

Our Favorite Norfolk Wedding Venues

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Virginia has so many amazing wedding venues that it’s a little difficult to list them all out. Today we’re kicking off a three part series of our favorite wedding venues in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and the peninsula. And we’ll throw in the best of Suffolk, Portsmouth, and Chesapeake along the way.

Here are our favorite wedding venues in Norfolk:

The Chrysler Museum of Art - Norfolk

The architecture of the Chrysler Museum of Art is stunning and it’s a venue that is sure to wow your guests. They have outdoor and indoor options for cocktail hour, and the stone staircase in Huber Court makes for a truly grand entrance! We absolutely love this venue! View more here: Chrysler Museum of Art Wedding.

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The Botanical Garden - Norfolk

With acres of beautiful landscaping and flowers, the Norfolk Botanical Gardens is a gorgeous venue for an outdoor wedding! Each area of the gardens offers something different, and it's all beautiful! (See the different areas of the garden here.) After a garden ceremony, the reception can be held inside one of their three spaces or tented on the lawn. We love this venue so much, because so many of our CGP couples choose romantic outdoor weddings! We’ve done a ton of weddings here, but we’ll never get tired of this venue! View a Wildflower Meadow & Baker Hall Wedding, a Renaissance Court & Rose Garden Hall Wedding, and an outdoor Terrace Reception.

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The Virginia Zoo - Norfolk

The Norfolk Zoo is such a fun and unique place for a wedding! Larger events can be held under the event pavilion, while small weddings can take place in several areas around the zoo, including their rose garden. And the best part... your guests get to tour the zoo during cocktail hour! The Zoo is the perfect wedding venue for outdoor weddings with a tented or pavilion reception. View more here: Norfolk Zoo wedding.

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Half Moone - Norfolk

Half Moone is another of my favorite wedding venues in Hampton Roads! It's so beautiful! The beautiful circular ballroom features a large glass wall giving guests a beautiful ceremony backdrop and a front-row seat to the sunset. And this venue couldn't be at a more convenient location, right in the heart of downtown Norfolk. With Nauticus and Town Point Park next door and the Pagoda and gardens just a few blocks away, there are plenty of gorgeous backdrops for portraits. View our Half Moone Cruise & Celebration Center wedding.

And I can’t share my favorite venues without including my favorite Portsmouth wedding venue or my favorite Suffolk wedding venue, so here are two more:

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The Historic Obici House - Suffolk

The Obici House is such a cute wedding venue in Suffolk. It's located on a golf course, with a beautiful ceremony spot overlooking the water and plenty of space for a large reception tent. The inside of the house is simple and beautiful, offering a lovely backdrop for smaller weddings. View more here: Romantic Jewel Toned Wedding Inspiration at the Obici House.

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The Woman's Club - Portsmouth

I think the Portsmouth Women's Club might just be the prettiest wedding venue in all of Hampton Roads! The ballroom has a high vaulted ceiling, and there's a beautiful staircase and a balcony to photograph from! The venue also has a long covered porch in the front and a big deck out back. I love that there are options for both indoor and outdoor ceremonies and it's the perfect venue for a large wedding! View our Portsmouth Woman's Club wedding and a styled shoot at the Woman's Club of Portsmouth.

 

Are you newly engaged and looking for a wedding photographer for your Norfolk wedding? Whether you're planning a wedding at the Chrysler Museum or the Woman’s Club of Portsmouth, we'd love to hear from you! Shoot me an email to say hello and see if we’re available for your wedding day!

Behind the Scenes 2018

Behind the Scenes and bloopers… it’s one of my favorite posts of the year! Enjoy a small glimpse of what it would be like to follow us around on a wedding day!

We get in each other’s way a lot!

In spite of having lots of ideas to pose our couples, I never seem to know what to do for lighting test shots.

After collecting all the photos for this post, I realized that I only wore 2 dresses to all of this year’s weddings. And they’re pretty much identical. (I also have it in black!)

Sometimes, you don’t always get the perfect background for engagement sessions.

Ryan has a good time at weddings, I promise!

This face is proof that I say stupid things when I’m shooting. I can’t believe I’m sharing this one!

Love her!

Two exciting things that happened this year were having a styled shoot featured in the Coastal Virginia Bride Magazine and receiving a charger award at the ILEA Gala. The votes were tied for Mike Dragon and me, which I consider a big honor, because Mike is an amazing photographer!

Our Favorite 2018 Wedding Photos

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What an amazing wedding season 2018 was! We saw tearful first looks, gorgeous mix and match bridesmaids dresses, delicious cakes & pies, and so many beautiful details handcrafted by our couples and their families! This wedding season took us to some really gorgeous venues, like the Norfolk Botanical Garden, the Chrysler Museum of Art, CNU, and Fort Monroe! And I know that I say this every year (but it’s TRUE), we work with the kindest couples in the world! They invest in us, not just as vendors, but as people and friends. They ask our advice on their timeline and logistics, and they are SO EXCITED for their sunset portraits, which we love!

I love winding down the year by looking back at all of our favorite shots. Cheers, 2018! It’s been a good one!

Enjoy our Best of 2018: Weddings!

Coming next Monday… Behind the Scenes and Bloopers!

Are you newly engaged and planning your wedding? We are booking 2019 weddings now, so drop us an email to say hello and see if we're available for your wedding day!

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:
2018 Best of Weddings
2018 Best of Engagements

Why I Photograph Weddings: Telling Your Love Story

I grew up wanting to tell love stories. I created two characters, placed them in a make-believe world, and introduced them to each other, all with my pen. (My keyboard, actually, but that’s less romantic.) In some way, every story that I wrote was a love story. Because there’s something so special about two people falling in love. But I discovered that while a fictional love story is powerful, it can’t compare with the power of a real love story.

A love story lived out, day by day, with purpose and heart and commitment. Not just falling in love, but committing to stay in love. That kind of love is inspiring. Encouraging. Powerful.
There’s so much beauty in a love story that’s real and not fiction. There’s beauty in the laughter, in the sacrifice, in the pain, and even in the anger.

This is the kind of love story that I want to write. Not just with words, but with images as well. Because this love story needs to be told. 

One day your children and grandchildren will ask about your love story. And you’ll reach for your wedding album, the book that will help you tell that story, and you’ll start from the very beginning.

I photograph weddings because I want to tell your love story.

 

Want to see me in action? Check out my behind the scenes video.

 

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:
How to Choose Your Wedding Photographer
Am I The Right Photographer for You?
Comparing Photographers: Budget, Style, & Experience
Why is Wedding Photography More Expensive
Why I Photograph Weddings
What We Wear to Weddings
The Gift of Photography
Whatever It Takes
Things I've Learned Being Photographed

Whatever It Takes

Being wedding photographers means doing whatever it takes to get the shot and give our couple the most amazing wedding day. This naturally includes lots of veil and hair adjusting, dress fluffing, family wrangling, bouquet rotating, detail arranging, and moment capturing.

But we do a lot on the wedding day that might seem a little more unusual. We do so much on a wedding day that I'm sure I've forgotten half of the crazy 'outside my job description' things we've done for our couples over the years, but here are a dozen that come to mind:

- Lacing up the bride's dress when the bridesmaids aren't sure what to do

- Helping pin and repin flowers in a bride's hair

- Confiscating hair ties from the bridesmaids' wrists so they don't show in photos.

- Creatively photographing around construction tape, bright blue recycling bins, and a dozen other unsightly things the bride and groom didn't know were going to be there

- Standing on a 30 inch tall cooler to get a large group shot

- Coming to the rescue with bandaids when the bride cuts her finger

- Standing in the bushes to get the shot during bride and groom portraits

- Handing the bride the loop under her train to help her carry it around before bustling

- Teaching the bride and groom the Cupid Shuffle so they can enjoy time with their friends and family on the dance floor

- Giving the bride bobby pins out of my own hair

- Pinning the maid of honor's dress so she doesn't have to worry about her high slit all day

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- Peeling back the layers of a tulle wedding gown to get the knats out

- Showing the bride and groom how to cut the cake

- Rewrapping boutonnieres that are losing their ribbon

 

Ryan and I absolutely love our couples and we'd do each of these things and many more at every single wedding if it meant giving them the wedding photography experience of their dreams!

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into what it's like to be at a wedding with us! If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:
How to Choose Your Wedding Photographer
Am I The Right Photographer for You?
Comparing Photographers: Budget, Style, & Experience
Why is Wedding Photography More Expensive
Why I Photograph Weddings
What We Wear to Weddings
The Gift of Photography
Whatever It Takes
Things I've Learned Being Photographed