Lakeside Weddings and Events Photos

Lakeside Weddings and Events is a wedding venue on the shore of Lake Jacqueline, at 2620 Regatta Drive in the Desert Shores neighborhood. It has four ceremony gardens, an indoor chapel with large windows over the water, and indoor reception rooms, and it sits about 12 miles northwest of the Strip, which is fifteen to twenty five minutes in a car.

I’m McKenzie. I’ve photographed weddings in Las Vegas every year since 2010, more than 300 of them. Every photo on this page comes from one wedding I shot here: a ceremony in Heritage Garden, portraits along the water afterward, and dinner at Marché Bacchus, the French bistro at the same address. One wedding is what I have from this venue so far, so rather than show you a handful of the prettiest frames, I put the whole day up.

If Lakeside is on your list, send me a message and tell me what date you’re looking at. I’d love to hear about it.

What Heritage Garden looks like through a camera

The arches are the reason this garden photographs the way it does. A walkway runs down the middle of the lawn under a row of iron arches that are completely buried in greenery, with small lights strung through them. Standing at the back of that aisle, you are looking down a green tunnel with the lake at the end of it. That frame is in the gallery twice, once empty before guests arrived and once during the ceremony, and it is the picture most couples have in their head when they book this place.

All that greenery also fixes the hardest problem with an outdoor ceremony in Las Vegas, which is the sun. The vines break the light up before it reaches anybody’s face, so it lands soft instead of harsh. Nobody in these ceremony photos is squinting through their vows, and that is the arches doing it rather than anything I brought with me.

The lake does the rest. The ground drops away behind the ceremony site to Lake Jacqueline, so the background of every ceremony photo is water and willow branches instead of a wall or a parking lot. The venue’s Heritage Garden page also describes a ceremony gazebo right at the water’s edge, which is worth walking to when you tour.

Portraits did not take us far. There is a willow that hangs low enough to shoot through, a patch of tall ornamental grasses that goes gold in late light, and a railed walkway along the water where the sun comes across the lake at the end of the day. All three are in the gallery, and all three are about a minute’s walk from where the chairs were set.

What it takes to photograph a wedding here

Nobody gets in a car once they arrive

The gardens, the chapel and the reception rooms all sit on the same property, so guests walk from the ceremony to dinner. The venue’s wedding venues page lists four ceremony gardens, Heritage, Swan, Grand and Waterfall, plus an indoor Lakeview Chapel with large windows over the lake and indoor reception space. It holds anywhere from about ten guests up to 225, depending on the room.

That matters more than it sounds like it should, because every drive on a wedding day comes out of your portrait time. Lake Las Vegas is the other water venue I photograph at often, and there is a full list of the Las Vegas venues and locations I shoot at if you’re still comparing.

Ask how an outside photographer works before you sign

Lakeside offers photography in house, which is part of the appeal for plenty of couples. It also means bringing in a photographer you picked is a conversation to have on your tour rather than after the contract is signed.

Their FAQ page is where to start, and your coordinator is the one who can tell you how it works on your booking. I’m not going to speak for them, and their answer is the one that counts.

Dinner can be a few steps down the same lake

The wedding on this page had dinner at Marché Bacchus, the French bistro and wine shop at the same Regatta Drive address, out over the water. Floor to ceiling glass doors open onto the lake, and the wine shop next to the dining room carries more than 950 labels you can walk through and pick from.

For photos that means the reception half of the day looks like a restaurant rather than a ballroom: rattan bistro chairs, a stone fireplace with greenery run along the mantel, long tables, daylight coming in through glass. You can see all of it at the end of the gallery. If that’s the evening you want, ask both places how a ceremony at one and dinner at the other works on your date, since they are separate businesses sharing a lake.

The best time of day for photos at Lakeside

The last hour before sunset is the one to build your day around. That is when the light through the greenery goes warm, and when the water starts throwing it back at you along the walkway. The bride portraits at the railing in the gallery came out of that hour, and it does not last much longer than that.

So work backward from it. For an outdoor ceremony here I ask for a start about two hours before the sun goes down. That leaves the ceremony, then family photos while everyone is still in one place, then ten or fifteen minutes for the two of you by the water before dinner.

Sunset in Las Vegas moves by more than three hours across the year, so the same clock time is a completely different wedding in June than it is in December. A five o’clock ceremony in June is full daylight. A five o’clock ceremony in December happens after dark. Once you have a date, the ceremony time follows from it, and if your date lands in winter, a first look is worth thinking about, because it moves your portraits into the daylight you actually have.

Summer is easier here than at most outdoor venues, because the arches are covered and the willows shade a good part of the lawn. It is still a Las Vegas summer and your guests will be warm, and I’ve written honestly about what a summer wedding here is like if that’s the season you’re weighing.

If you’re getting married in Heritage Garden

What I like about photographing here is how little the day asks of anybody. The arches handle the light, the lake handles the background, the portrait spots are sixty seconds from the ceremony chairs, and dinner is a walk instead of a drive.

I’m the photographer at every wedding I book, so nobody gets sent in my place. My rate is $300 an hour when you book two hours or more, and eight hours is what most couples choose for a full wedding day. There’s more about how I work on my wedding photography page, and every rate is on the pricing page.

I hold a date once your venue is booked, so as soon as you’ve signed with Lakeside, email me at mckenzie@msweddingimage.com or send me a message here. Tell me which garden you picked and what you have planned so far, and we’ll go from there.