Smith Center Engagement Photos in Downtown Las Vegas

Yes, you can have your engagement photos taken at The Smith Center, and couples do it all the time. There is one thing to know before you plan around it: that block is made of two separate properties, and each one has its own rule about photography. The Smith Center campus, meaning the building and the walkways right around it, is the center’s own property with its own rules, so a session there starts by asking the center. Symphony Park, the open park at the east end with the sculpture in it, is city land, and the City of Las Vegas requires a film permit for a hired photographer working on public ground. That permit is free.

I’m McKenzie, a Las Vegas wedding photographer. I’ve photographed weddings every year since 2010, over 300 of them. Seven different couples in my portfolio were photographed on this one block downtown. Two of those were engagement sessions in regular clothes, and the other five were couples on their wedding day, shooting here between the ceremony and the reception. That split is worth saying out loud, because you came looking for engagement photos and most of what I have from here was shot in wedding clothes. The place works the same either way: same walkways, same backdrops, same permissions. The asking and the permit are my job, not yours.

What Smith Center engagement photos actually look like

You get four backdrops here that look nothing alike, all within a few minutes of each other on foot. That variety is the main reason couples shoot here. Most locations in Las Vegas give you one kind of background, and this one gives you four without moving the car. Two of the four sit on the campus side, one sits out in the city park, and one runs between them. Which side a backdrop sits on is what decides whether it needs the center’s permission or the city permit.

The colonnade with the hanging lanterns

The colonnade is the backdrop couples do not expect. It is part of the building itself, so it is campus ground. It is a covered walkway of pale limestone with square art deco lanterns hanging down it in a row. The building took its design cues from the art deco of Hoover Dam, so the stone and the lanterns look like they belong to an older Las Vegas than the one around them. For photos, the useful part is that the walkway is covered and never in direct sun, so the light in there is soft and warm and it barely changes all afternoon. If you are worried about squinting or harsh shadows, this is where I put you.

The garden walkway under the string lights

The garden walkway is open to the sky, which makes it the one backdrop here that looks different depending on when you shoot it. It runs between the buildings, so it sits on the campus side too and goes into the ask. It is lined on both sides with big planters and trees, with strings of cafe lights running across overhead. In the afternoon it photographs as a bright green corridor. In the last half hour of daylight the strings come on, and they show up in the picture instead of washing out against a bright sky. The same walkway becomes a completely different photo. That is why this spot comes late in the session rather than early.

The palm lined plaza and the lawn

The plaza and the lawn are the simplest backdrops here, and they are the ones with room in them. They are wide, open and symmetrical, with the stone building standing behind you and palms running down both sides. Open space is what you need when there are more than two of you in the frame, so this is where a bridal party or a family group fits. It is also where I start most sessions, because there is room to move around while you are still warming up to the camera. This stretch runs between the building and the park. I do not try to guess where one ends and the other begins, so it goes into the ask to the center and onto the city permit.

Pipe Dream, the wall of colored pipes

Pipe Dream is the rainbow wall you have probably seen on somebody’s Instagram. It sits at the east end of Symphony Park, on city ground, so the film permit is what covers it. It is built from 128 steel pipes and runs about 86 feet across and 27 feet tall. Almost every outdoor backdrop in this city is some shade of beige, so a solid wall of color is a real change of pace. It is one of the most photographed things in the park, and it is why a lot of couples ask me about downtown in the first place.

Are you allowed to take photos on the Smith Center campus?

The campus is The Smith Center’s own ground, and it has its own rules about photography, so the way to shoot there is to ask the center first rather than to assume. That ask is the first thing I do once we have a date. I make it, I wait for the answer, and I plan the route around whatever comes back. All I need from you is lead time, so tell me a couple of weeks out rather than a couple of days out. You may run into The Smith Center’s written photography rule while you are searching. That one covers cameras and recording inside the theater during a show, and it says nothing about the walkways outside.

If the answer comes back no, or if there is an event on the campus that day, the session moves east onto the park side. That is city ground, the permit covers it, and Pipe Dream, the lawn and the open green are all out there. You would lose the colonnade, which is the backdrop I would miss most, and you would still get a full session in a place that looks like nowhere else downtown. So the center’s answer changes which backdrops we use, not whether the session happens.

Do you need a permit for photos in Symphony Park?

Yes, for a hired photographer, and it does not add anything to what you pay for your session. Symphony Park is city land, which the City of Las Vegas has owned since 2000. The city requires a film permit for still photography inside city limits, not just for movie crews, and that covers a photographer you are paying to shoot on public ground. The permit itself is free.

Two things about the permit affect your date. The application goes in at least five working days before the session, so booking a downtown session for the same week does not leave enough time. And the city requires insurance that names the city, which is something a working photographer carries anyway. I file it.

The best time of day for Smith Center engagement photos

Start about two hours before sunset and work your way east across the block. The order matters here more than it does at most locations, because the buildings are tall and they cut the light early. By the time the sun is low, half of it is already in shade.

Here is the order I use, and why each spot sits where it does.

• Start in the colonnade while the sun is still high. That walkway is covered, so its light is the same at four o’clock as it is at six.
• Move out to the palm plaza and the lawn next, while there is still enough sun to light open ground.
• Take the garden walkway after that, once the buildings start throwing shade. That is exactly when the string lights begin to read in a photo.
• Finish at Pipe Dream, which sits out at the east end facing open sky and holds its light longer than anywhere else here.

That route runs in a straight line from the campus side out to the park side, so you are never walking back over ground you already covered.

What “two hours before sunset” means on a clock changes a lot by season. The latest sunset of the year in Las Vegas is around 8 p.m. in late June, and the earliest is around 4:30 in early December. So a summer session downtown starts at six and a December session starts in the middle of the afternoon. Tell me the month and I will tell you the hour.

One more thing to check before you pick a date is the performance schedule. The Smith Center’s main hall seats over 2,000 people and shows typically start at 7:30, which means an audience is arriving on the plaza in the hour before the curtain. That is the same hour a session shooting in late light wants to be out there. The center posts a public calendar, so I check your date against it and we either pick a quieter evening or start earlier.

Season matters too. Downtown is hotter than the number on your phone suggests, because it is stone and paving with very little shade over the open parts. Average high temperatures in Las Vegas run near or above 95 degrees from June through September, and the paving holds that heat well past sunset. Summer sessions here run at the end of the day only, and I will not schedule one earlier. From about October through April, an afternoon down here is comfortable and we can take our time.

Where you park, and how far you walk

You park once and the rest of it is on foot. The Smith Center does not have a garage of its own, so you park in one of the city garages in Symphony Park. The Promenade Garage at 355 Promenade Place is the one I point couples to, because it is covered and it puts you close to the walkways.

From there, everything is flat paving the whole way. No stairs you have to take, no gravel, no dirt. Walking the whole block from the colonnade out to the sculpture takes about five minutes. It is the shortest, flattest walk of any location I shoot in this city, and it is the reason bridal parties and grandparents do fine here.

What to wear against pale stone and a wall of color

The stone down here is pale and neutral, so almost any color you like will read cleanly against it. The place to think a little harder is Pipe Dream. Solid colors hold up in front of that wall better than busy patterns do, because the wall behind you is already 128 stripes of color. Plan on one outfit, too. There is no dressing room down here, so what you arrive in is what you are photographed in. If you want the longer version, I wrote a whole piece on what to wear for engagement photos in Las Vegas.

How long a Smith Center session takes, and what it costs

A standalone engagement session is $500 and runs about an hour and a half, which is enough time to walk the whole block without hurrying. I tell couples to block out two hours anyway, because sessions run long when everybody is having fun. If you book a wedding collection of eight hours or more, an engagement session is included with it, so there is nothing extra to pay for the downtown session itself. Prices are subject to change, and I go through the whole picture in how much engagement photos cost in Las Vegas.

See the full set of photos from this block

Every photo I have from this block is on one page: all seven couples, the colonnade, the string lights, the lawn and the pipes, in one gallery you can scroll through before you decide anything.

If you want a second backdrop in the same afternoon, the Arts District is a few minutes south, and the murals there give you another wall of color. Couples pair those two often, and the drive takes a few minutes, so you barely lose any daylight.

And if this sounds like your kind of place, send me a message and tell me what you have in mind. Almost everybody tells me they are awkward in front of a camera before we start. I am too, any time somebody points one at me. So I give you prompts, small things to do and say, instead of poses to hold, and about ten minutes in most couples stop thinking about the camera at all.