There’s just something about fall weddings in Lake Tahoe. The cool air and the color-changing leaves wrap you up in the season’s warmth. Mark & Mckenna’s fall wedding took place in November at the Olympic Village Lodge in Squaw Valley, California.
November weddings here in the Sierra Nevadas can be quite unpredictable. Sometimes the fall season will end faster than expected and you get snow at the beginning of November. Then there are other times when it’s so warm and perfect that you are able to enjoy an outdoor wedding ceremony plus cocktail hour followed by an indoor wedding reception.
The days leading up to Mark and McKenna’s Lake Tahoe wedding were cloudy and raining. Luckily for them, the sun came shining through the clouds which resulted in some of the most beautiful sunset photos our team has ever captured. You’ll see some of those sunset photos later on in this blog.
For Mark & Mckenna, our Epik bride and groom, their Lake Tahoe wedding ceremony location was nestled against the trees and the mountains creating the perfect backdrop to say their “I Do’s.” In the ceremony photos, you can see the groom and his groomsmen wearing cowboy hats, a great personalized touch. The bridesmaids wore different style dresses in the same shade of beautiful burgundy.
The stunning wedding flowers were by the incredibly talented Meghon at Love and Lupines Floral Design. Our photographers had a lot of fun shooting the bride’s details shots using the bride’s beautiful bouquet as inspiration. The bouquet was filled with different blooms in awesome burgundy shades with pops of pink from pink roses.
These two had a really unique and memorable detail to their wedding. They had a dictionary guestbook for their guests to sign. Guests would find a word in the dictionary that described the bride and groom or marriage; circle it then share their wedding wishes along with why they chose that word. Our team signed the dictionary guestbook and of course, we chose the word epic. Even though we spell it differently, there was a similar meaning.
With a fall wedding like this, sunlight was scarce. Soon after the ceremony ended, the bride and groom jumped into our photographer’s car to drive to a location down the road to capture those beloved sunset wedding photos. When the bride and groom walked into that empty field and the sunlight bounced off her dress, we knew these photos were going to be Epik. These two’s sunset photos are some of our favorites. Maybe our favorites ever? Our team might debate about that.
Once cocktail hour was over, it was time for the wedding reception. Mark and Mckenna went into their first dance right after their grand entrance. For their first dance song, they chose a rendition of the song “Can’t Help Fallin’ In Love” by Andrew James and Chandler Gallagher. Our sweet couple gazed into each other’s eyes as they performed their choreographed dance in front of their family and friends.
They also had other traditional wedding events on the timeline of their wedding such as the mother-son dance and the father-daughter dance. Once the specialty dances were over, our DJ guided all our guests to gather behind the couple on the dance floor for a group photo. We always advise our couples to have their wedding photographer snap a group photo of everyone together to commemorate this moment because you’ll never know when you’ll all be together like that again.
This wedding was filled with love and major wedding inspiration. From the cowboy hats to the flower crowns, and the burgundy dresses with perfectly coordinated bridal bouquets, this wedding was a mountain wedding dream.
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