Lake Las Vegas Weddings: A Photographer's Venue Guide

Lake Las Vegas is a privately owned man made lake of about 320 acres in Henderson, Nevada, roughly 17 miles east of the Las Vegas Strip. Several separate businesses sit around that one lake, and each of them books its own weddings, so picking a Lake Las Vegas wedding really means picking among them. There are two resort hotels, two golf clubs, a walkable village with restaurants and an event venue inside it, and a yacht you can charter from the marina. No single company runs all of that, so you book directly with whichever one you choose.

I’m McKenzie Stewart. I’ve photographed weddings in Las Vegas since 2009, more than 300 of them, and I live in Henderson, the same city the lake is in. Three of those weddings were out at Lake Las Vegas. One was a garden ceremony with the chairs set around a round stone fire feature, and a circular floral arch standing behind the couple. One was on the lawn right at the water’s edge, under a draped wooden arch, with the replica bridge across the water behind it. I’ve also photographed portraits in the village, under the long covered walkway with lanterns hung down it, and down on the dock, with boats moored alongside and the village rooftops across the water.

Whichever venue you pick, the month you get married in decides what time your ceremony can start.

Where is Lake Las Vegas, and how far is it from the Strip?

Lake Las Vegas sits in the far eastern corner of Henderson. The Hilton’s own property listing puts it 17 miles from the Las Vegas Strip and 15 miles from Harry Reid International Airport, which works out to about half an hour of driving from either one in normal traffic.

That matters for your guest list. If your friends and family are staying on the Strip, they’re making a half hour drive out and a half hour drive back, at night, after a reception. Both resorts at the lake have rooms, so anyone who would rather not make that drive can stay out there with you.

The Lake Las Vegas wedding venues at a glance

Here is every wedding venue at the lake, where it sits, and where you can hold the ceremony.

Venue	Where it is	Outdoor ceremony spaces	Indoor option	Rough scale
Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa	Attached to the village	Florentine Gardens courtyard	Yes, a covered wedding chapel out over the water plus the Grand Ballroom, MonteLago Ballroom and Estate Boardroom	Chapel seats up to 200; ballroom capacities are not published consistently
The Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa	Near the village, with a shuttle running over to it	Andalusian Gardens with a gazebo, The Lotus Court, La Menzah Lawn	Yes, the Casablanca and Baraka ballrooms	Ballroom capacities appear only in directory listings; nothing is published for the three outdoor ceremony spaces
Reflection Bay Golf Club	A short drive from the Hilton, on the same side of the lake	Private white sand beach and the clubhouse grounds	Yes, rooms inside the clubhouse	Published numbers conflict, from about 130 to about 300
The Lake Club at SouthShore and SouthShore Golf Club	Across the water from the village, inside a gated private community	Lakeside and beach ceremony settings	Yes, an event room in the clubhouse	Published numbers conflict, from about 130 to about 170
Timeless Moments	Inside the village	An outdoor courtyard with greenery and a water feature	Yes, an indoor banquet hall	Courtyard holds about 40; the hall is published as up to about 150 seated
La Contessa, chartered through Lake Las Vegas Water Sports	Boards at the marina in the village	The upper deck of the boat	Yes, the enclosed lower deck	Around 50 for a seated dinner

A table can’t tell you what these places are like once you’re standing in them. The garden ceremony I photographed at this lake was on the formal garden’s paved paths, lined with clipped hedges and cypress. One lawn ceremony was in a courtyard right against the arched front of the resort. The other was down at the water, with the lake and the replica bridge behind the couple.

If you already know your guest count, that last column is the one to use, and here is how to use it. Three of these venues have two different published capacity numbers in circulation, and the two numbers are far enough apart that you can’t plan with either one. So send every place on your list the same email: we’re expecting this many guests, which of your rooms seats that many for dinner with a dance floor in it, and what is the most that room will hold? The number they write back is the only capacity number that counts, and you’ll have it from all of them within a few days.

Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa

The Hilton is the resort attached to the village, so your guests can walk from their room to the shops and the restaurants without getting in a car.

It gives you two very different wedding settings. Its wedding chapel sits out over the water, and listings describe it as the only over water wedding chapel in the Las Vegas area. Inside it has dark wooden pews, marble floors and chandeliers, and it seats up to 200. It’s also indoors, so a ceremony in there looks the same at noon as it does at seven, and weather changes nothing about it. The second setting is the Florentine Gardens, an outdoor courtyard with landscaping and arched doorways and the lake behind it. For receptions the resort has the Grand Ballroom, the smaller MonteLago Ballroom and the Estate Boardroom.

The Westin Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa

The Westin is the other resort hotel at the lake, with 493 rooms and suites on 21 acres of lakefront. It sits near the village as well, and it runs a shuttle over to it, so both resorts are in the same part of the lake. The difference that matters is which one has the setting you want. The Hilton has the chapel. The Westin has three outdoor ceremony spaces and no chapel.

Those three are the Andalusian Gardens, The Lotus Court and La Menzah Lawn. The Andalusian Gardens hold a gazebo for a ceremony at the water, plus a quieter terrace off to the side. Indoors the Westin has the Casablanca and Baraka ballrooms for receptions, and it names several more event spaces including the Skala Terrace, The Straits and Upper Nuala. All three of its named ceremony spaces are outdoors, so ask about the rain plan on the same call where you ask about capacity.

Getting married at Reflection Bay or SouthShore

Reflection Bay Golf Club is a short drive from the Hilton, on the same side of the lake, and it books weddings. Its own material markets the renovated Reflection Bay Golf and Beach Club as a wedding venue with a private white sand beach. The club also has a 32,000 square foot clubhouse and a floating stage on the water. If you want a beach ceremony at this lake, this is the venue to start with. It is a public golf club and it markets its beach for ceremonies. The Lake Club at SouthShore has white sand too, but it sits inside a private club.

The Lake Club at SouthShore is the one venue here I can’t give you a clean answer on. It sits across the water from the village, inside SouthShore, which is a private community behind a guard gate. The club itself is a country club with members. It has two wedding settings: the Lake Club down at the water, where beach ceremonies happen, and the SouthShore Clubhouse up the hill, with a restaurant, a bar and a large event room. The club markets special events and weddings on its own site and takes inquiries through the big wedding directories. Whether a couple with no connection to the club can book it without a member sponsoring them is not stated anywhere, so make that your first question when you call.

The Village at Lake Las Vegas

The village is the pedestrian town center on the lake, about 50 acres of cobblestone streets and Mediterranean style buildings. A replica of Florence’s Ponte Vecchio runs across the water at one end of it, with shops along the bridge at street level and hotel rooms on the floors above them. It opened as MonteLago Village and is now called The Village at Lake Las Vegas, and both names are still in use, so a listing that says MonteLago means this same place.

Couples getting married at this lake often end up taking their portraits here, and so have I. My favorite spot is the arcade, a long covered walkway with lanterns hung down the length of it. You get shade and good light in the same place, which is hard to find outside in the middle of a Nevada afternoon. The dock at the marina has boats moored along it, and when you’re standing on it you have the village rooftops across the water behind you.

The village also has places to hold a reception. Luna Rossa Ristorante publishes a private event capacity of up to 150 and markets rehearsal dinners and private parties. Other restaurants there include Sonrisa Grill and The Auld Dubliner, and you’d have to ask them directly about private events. An independent wedding venue operates inside the village as well: Timeless Moments, at 30 Via Brianza, with an outdoor ceremony courtyard that holds about 40 and an indoor banquet hall published as seating up to about 150.

Can you get married on the water at Lake Las Vegas?

Yes, on a boat. Lake Las Vegas Water Sports operates out of the marina in the village and charters La Contessa, an 80 foot yacht with two decks and two bars, for weddings and receptions. That is the company you call to book it. The boat holds around 50 for a seated dinner, and a charter comes with a captain, a dock hand, use of the sound system, and about two hours of access before your guests arrive so you can set up.

Getting married on the dock or at the marina, without chartering the boat, is a different question. Nobody publishes whether that can be booked. If that’s what you’re picturing, ask the marina and ask the village office, because that ground is private, and the village sets the rules for its common areas.

What time should your ceremony start at Lake Las Vegas?

In spring and fall, start an outdoor ceremony about 90 minutes before sunset. That hour is comfortable and the light is good at the same time, and it leaves enough daylight afterward for photos. In June and July that same window is the only part of the day that is bearable outside, so the ceremony, the family photos and your portraits all have to happen in the same 60 to 90 minutes before an 8 pm sunset. In November and December the weather is fine all afternoon and the light is lovely, but the sun is down between about 4:30 and 4:45, so your reception happens in the dark.

Here are the numbers behind that. Temperatures are the National Weather Service normals for the valley and sunset times are the published times for Las Vegas, which run within a minute of Henderson. Two rows are marked estimated, and those two times are calculated rather than published.

Month	Average high	Sunset, approximate	What that means for your ceremony
March	71 F	5:35 pm early in the month, around 6:45 pm after the clocks change	Comfortable at any hour; pick your time for the light
April	79 F	around 7:15 pm, estimated	Comfortable at any hour
May	89 F	around 7:40 pm	Warm; put the ceremony in the last hour or two of daylight
June	99 F	around 8:00 pm	Ceremony at 7:00 pm or later
July	105 F	around 8:00 pm	The hardest month; ceremony at 7:00 pm or later
August	103 F	around 7:30 pm, estimated	Ceremony at 6:30 pm or later
September	95 F	7:10 pm on the 1st, 6:27 pm on the 30th	Warm; late afternoon or evening
October	81 F	around 6:25 pm, falling through the month	Comfortable at any hour
November	67 F	4:45 pm at the start of the month, around 4:30 pm by the end	Comfortable, but the whole day starts early
December	57 F	around 4:30 pm	Mild in the daytime; the short day is the real constraint

The posted sunset time is not when the light leaves your ceremony spot. The hills around this lake are steep and close to the water, and parts of the shoreline drop into shade a good while before the time on the chart. So ask your venue coordinator what the light does in that exact spot at your ceremony hour. They can usually tell you. And if you live here, or you’re in town before the wedding anyway, go stand in the spot yourself at that hour, in the same season if you can. Five minutes there tells you whether you’ll be in full sun, in half sun and half shade, or already in shadow.

Planning a summer ceremony, June through August

In summer your ceremony has to sit at the end of the day, for two separate reasons, and both of them point to the same hour. The first is the heat. An outdoor ceremony in the middle of a July afternoon is hard on your grandparents and hard on anyone wearing a suit. The second is the light. In the middle of a summer afternoon the sun is nearly straight overhead here, which is the harshest light there is for photos of people, and it doesn’t soften until it drops low.

So the ceremony, the receiving line, the family group photos and your portrait session all have to happen in the same short window before sunset, and there isn’t room for all of them. Something has to move earlier. The usual fix is a first look before the ceremony, done indoors or somewhere shaded, so your portraits and most of the family groups are already finished by the time you walk down the aisle. That way the last of the daylight only has to cover a few photos of the two of you.

It also stays hot after dark. Between the afternoon high and the coldest part of the night the valley cools about 20 degrees, and most of that comes off in the first few hours after the sun goes down. So a July ceremony at 7:30 pm, half an hour before sunset, is still happening in most of the afternoon’s heat. Plan for water and for shade while people are waiting. I wrote more about all of this in my post on summer weddings in Las Vegas.

Planning a late fall or winter ceremony, November through January

The other end of the year has the opposite problem. It’s comfortable outside all afternoon, and the low winter sun is the nicest light this lake gets, but the day is short. Counting back 90 minutes from a 4:30 sunset puts your ceremony at 3:00 or 3:15 pm, and everything after dinner happens in the dark. If you want pictures around the village and out on the bridge, they have to happen before the ceremony or right after it. If you’re still choosing a date rather than a venue, my post on the best time of year to get married in Las Vegas walks through the whole calendar.

What does a Lake Las Vegas wedding cost?

No venue at this lake publishes a real all in price on its own site, and the numbers on the big directory sites swing wildly for the same property because each listing is quoting a different piece of the bill.

The fastest way to get a real number is to email the catering or events office at every place on your list with the same three facts: your date, your guest count, and roughly what time you want to start. Ask each one for a proposal with four lines broken out separately: the food and beverage minimum, the site or ceremony fee, the service charge percentage, and the tax. That minimum is the line that decides your total. It’s a floor on what you spend on catering and bar, so if your food and drinks come in under it, you owe the difference anyway. The minimum also changes with your guest count, your day of the week and your month, so ask each venue what it is on your date. A week of emails gets you numbers you can actually compare.

A Nevada marriage license costs $102 from the Clark County Clerk, with no waiting period and no blood test, and I wrote the full walkthrough in how to get a marriage license in Las Vegas. You also need someone legally allowed to perform the ceremony in Nevada, which I covered in who can officiate a wedding in Nevada.

My own pricing doesn’t change by venue. It’s $300 an hour when you book two or more hours, $350 for a single hour, and a $500 deposit holds your date. I don’t charge a travel fee anywhere in Clark County, so the lake costs the same as anywhere else in the valley. Everything else about how booking works is on my pricing page.

Bringing your own photographer to Lake Las Vegas

The village has its own photography rule, and it applies to the village itself, not to the hotels. Posed photography done by anyone working for pay, including wedding and family portraits, needs approval from village management ahead of time. The published policy sets a flat fee of $50 per session for a shoot of up to about two hours. Longer sessions may need a separate agreement, insurance and more money. Personal photos taken by your friends and family in the common areas are welcome and need no approval at all. Check that fee before you count on it: the most recent version of the village photography policy was published in 2021 and nothing newer has been posted since, so ask the village office for the current number rather than assuming the $50 still stands.

Neither resort publishes a photographer policy at all, so that one goes on your call list.

Email your venue coordinator these three questions before you sign anything, and ask for the answers in writing rather than over the phone:

• Can we bring our own wedding photographer, and is there any outside vendor fee?
• What do you need from our photographer beforehand, such as a certificate of insurance?
• Which parts of the property can we use for photos, and are any of them restricted to certain hours?

If you want something smaller than a resort wedding

You don’t have to plan a 150 guest resort wedding out here, and plenty of couples don’t want one. A ceremony for a handful of people works fine at this lake, whether that’s the courtyard at Timeless Moments, a boat charter with your closest 20, or just the two of you with the bridge behind you. Nevada only requires one witness at a ceremony, and I can be that witness for any couple I’m photographing, so you don’t have to find anybody. My elopements page covers how those days actually run.

Which one should you call first?

Here is how I would narrow it down, using what you already know about your own wedding.

• You want a chapel, or a ceremony that heat and weather can’t touch. Call the Hilton. Its chapel is the one purpose built, indoor ceremony space out here, and it seats up to 200.
• You want to get married outside, with options. Call the Westin. It has three separate outdoor ceremony spaces, so you can choose after you have seen all three.
• You want a beach ceremony. Call Reflection Bay. It markets a private white sand beach for ceremonies and it is a public club. SouthShore has a beach too, but it is inside the private club, so ask about that before you plan around it.
• Your guest list is large, or you want everyone staying and celebrating on one property. Either resort. They are the two full hotels at the lake, and both have ballrooms and rooms for your guests.
• Your whole wedding is about 40 people or fewer. Call Timeless Moments in the village, or call Lake Las Vegas Water Sports about chartering the boat.
• You already know a member at SouthShore. Call the club and ask about sponsorship. If you don’t know one, start with the other five.

Pick the two that fit and go see them both.

You can see the full set of wedding photos I’ve taken at this lake on my Lake Las Vegas wedding page, and if you’re thinking about an engagement session out there first, those are on the Lake Las Vegas engagement photos page. If you’re weighing this lake against other Henderson options, I wrote a similar guide to Green Valley Ranch weddings, and the rest of what I do for weddings is on the site too.

Once your venue and your date are booked, send me a message and tell me all about it. I’d love to be there.