A Simple Affair Las Vegas Wedding Photos

A Simple Affair is an indoor wedding and event venue at 9931 West Charleston Boulevard, on the west side of Las Vegas near Summerlin. It is one open room of about 4,100 square feet: reclaimed wood on the walls, string lights strung wall to wall overhead, brass pendant lamps hanging between them and a polished concrete floor underneath the whole thing. The venue is family owned, and its own site describes the room as a blank canvas you bring your own look to.

I’m McKenzie. I have photographed weddings in Las Vegas every year since 2010, more than 300 of them. Every photo on this page comes from one wedding reception I shot at A Simple Affair, and the whole set is here rather than three favorites. It runs from the empty room before anybody walked in through the entrance, the toasts, the cake and the last hour of dancing. There is no ceremony on this page, because that part of the day is not in what I have from this venue.

If A Simple Affair is on your list, send me a message and tell me what date you’re holding. I’d love to hear about it.

What A Simple Affair looks like through a camera

The reclaimed wood wall is the reason this room photographs the way it does. It runs the full length of the space in grays, tans and weathered white, and the venue washes it from sconces down at floor level, so it reads as texture instead of a flat backdrop. What that means on the night is simple: almost anywhere you stand in this room, that wall is what’s behind you. It is neutral enough to work with any color palette you bring, and it is warm enough that nobody looks gray in front of it.

The other half of the look is the ceiling. Rows of string lights cross the whole room, with the ductwork painted out dark above them. In a wide frame those rows of bulbs fill the top third of the picture. That is why every photo here reads warm even though not one of them was lit by daylight.

The floor does more work than most floors do. It is polished concrete with a swirl in it, and it reflects almost everything above it. In the wide photo of the empty room you can see the tables and the arch coming back up off it. It also bounces the string lights up under people’s faces on the dance floor, which is why the late dancing frames hold up without a lot of flash in them.

Two black steel support poles stand in the middle of the floor, and they are the one thing I plan around here. In a wide shot of the whole room they run right through the frame. That is not a knock on the venue, it just means the wide angles come from a couple of specific spots and the rest of the night I work closer in. Worth knowing if you had your heart set on one big picture with every guest in it.

Decide your uplight colors early, because in this room they are not a small detail. The far end of the space is a plain white wall, and whatever color the uplights are is the color that wall becomes. In these photos it is purple early and teal by the toasts. Pick colors you actually like in pictures, because that wall is behind a good part of your night.

What it takes to photograph a wedding at A Simple Affair

Everything happens in one room

This is a single space, and that changes how your evening gets timed. There is no separate cocktail area to move people into and no second room to reset, so either the room gets flipped with your guests in it or it is set for dinner from the start, the way it was at this wedding. Ask the venue how they handle that for the layout you want.

From my side, one room is easy. I am not driving anywhere, I am not losing twenty minutes to a parking lot, and the entrance, the toasts, the cake and the dance floor are all a few steps apart. If you want a look at how other venues compare on that, the full list of Las Vegas venues and locations I photograph at is worth a scroll.

Ask about the bar and the rest of your vendors

The venue publishes that you can bring in your own vendors, with alcohol as the exception, or take one of its all inclusive packages with catering and bar included. That flexibility is not common at Las Vegas venues, and it is often the reason couples land on this room, so confirm the current terms in writing when you tour. Whoever ends up catering, the only thing I need from that conversation is the timing. Photos stop while people eat and start again the second they’re done, so I want dinner service on the timeline.

Parking, accessibility and getting your guests in

The venue lists parking on site, which is not a given in Las Vegas and is one less line to write on your invitation. It also lists the room as wheelchair accessible. At the wedding on this page one guest spent the reception out on the dance floor in a wheelchair, and the flat concrete floor is most of why that worked. If getting a grandparent or a parent onto the dance floor is part of what you’re picturing, this room handles it.

If you’re still comparing rooms on this side of town, Canyon Gate Country Club is the closest venue page to this one, and The Grove is the garden version of the same idea up in the northwest valley.

The best time of day for photos at A Simple Affair

Inside this room, the clock barely matters. Nothing in here depends on the sun, so your reception photos are not on a deadline and the dance floor at 10pm looks the same as it did at 6. That is one real advantage of an indoor venue. At an outdoor one I am planning the whole evening around when the light goes.

Daylight is the part that is on a deadline, and all of it happens before you walk through the door. If you want portraits of the two of you in the sun, they happen at your ceremony site or somewhere on the way, not here. In December the sun is gone by about 4:30, so that has to be built into the front of your day. In June it holds past 8, which usually means the best light of the day lands after your guests have already sat down to dinner. Send me your timeline with your sunset time on it and I will build the photo plan around it instead of guessing at it later.

One small request I make at every indoor venue: have the string lights on before the entrance. They are the light in every photo of this room, and I would much rather have them up when you walk in than see them come on halfway through the first dance.

If A Simple Affair is where you’re headed, or you’re still deciding between it and somewhere else, I would love to talk it through. You can see more of my Las Vegas wedding photography or just reach out and tell me about your day. No pressure and no sales pitch, just a conversation about what you’re planning.