WPPI 2009: Vegas Wedding Project

March 15, 2009

The awesome and amazing Anne Ruthmann came up with the idea this past winter for the Vegas Wedding Project (still under construction!). Basically in a nutshell it’s a blog and book project aimed at showing modern Vegas weddings – since the majority of the wedding images you see from Las Vegas are all the hokey Elvis ones from the 1980’s. This year WPPI spanned over Valentine’s Day, which is the most popular day for weddings in Las Vegas, so Anne decided it would be the perfect day to get out there and take some shots of a day in the life of a Vegas Wedding Chapel. Everyone that participated chose their own chapel to document for the day and I decided on the Chapel of the Flowers in downtown Las Vegas. The Chapel of the Flowers offers 3 indoor chapels and three outdoor locations on site for weddings. They offer a variety of options for their weddings, including a live feed for friends and family to watch that aren’t able to be there in person – which I absolutely LOVED!

On Valentine’s Day they were expecting to have at least 60 weddings performed there before the end of the day. The typical span of the entire wedding took about an hour, beginning with the bride arriving and being escorted to the ceremony, the ceremony and pictures afterwards. The Chapel of the Flowers offers a florist on site, photographers, videographers, officiants, limo drivers and much more. The entire staff was courteous and friendly and each bride and groom left with huge smiles on their faces.

I tried to remain as unobstrusive as possible – hence the pictures from far away and not many portraits. I didn’t want the brides to become confused on which photographer to look at or take anything away from the staff photographers. I stayed for about 3 hours, leaving only when Marie Claire showed up and was VERY obtrusive as I did not want to be lumped with that group. It was a fun day and so awesome to see SO MANY BRIDES in one day! Whew!

A nervous father waits for his daughter to arrive.

The staff florist runs to get a bouquet and bout to a bride and groom while another bride arrives behind her.

Chaos really cannot begin to describe the day – however it was controlled chaos!

A bride arrives!

A tiny guest has a holiday momento for the bride and groom!

A couple leaving after getting the information about Chapel of the Flower’s wedding packages, they were to return that evening for their ceremony.

The Chapel of the Flowers sits in the shadow of the Stratosphere Tower… and you can occasionally hear people screaming from the amusements on top of the building.