Las Vegas Country Club Wedding

The Las Vegas Country Club is at 3000 Joe W Brown Drive, right next to the Las Vegas Convention Center and less than a mile east of the Strip. The course was designed by Ed Ault and opened in 1967, with the clubhouse finished the following spring, and the place still reads that way. Long low rooflines, stone columns, a rock wall at the entrance, and mature pines and olive trees that a newer venue simply does not have yet.

I have photographed two weddings here and they looked nothing alike. One was a South Asian wedding that ran across several events: a sangeet in front of a wall of paper flowers, a baraat that came up the drive with the whole family dancing around the groom, and a mandap set on the grass. The other was a couple who married at their Greek Orthodox church across town and came here afterward for portraits and a reception on the terrace.

Both of them used the same three things, which is the honest summary of this venue: the water, the lawn and the terrace. It is a big property with a small number of very good backgrounds, all of them close together. You are never hunting for a spot and you are never walking far to reach one.

What a Las Vegas Country Club wedding looks like in photos

The white arched bridge is the picture people remember. It crosses the water on the walk out from the clubhouse, it is painted white with a white rail, and it works in both directions: a bride coming down it toward you, or a portrait from below with the palms behind. It is the single most recognizable thing on the property.

The lawn in front of the clubhouse is the wide shot. Striped mown grass in the foreground, clipped hedges and flower beds across the middle, a fountain playing in the water, and the long horizontal clubhouse roof behind all of it. That one frame tells a couple everything about where they got married, which is why it is the photo at the top of this page.

Out at the edge of the course there are olive trees and tall ornamental grasses, and those are what I go to at the end of the day. When the sun drops low it comes through the grasses from behind and lights them up gold. Both couples on this page have a photo from that spot and it is the warmest frame either of them got.

The terrace is where the receptions happen once it is dark. Stone columns, lamps that come on at dusk, a tiled floor that guests fill up fast. Dancing photos there have real light in them instead of the flat wash you get in a windowless ballroom.

Planning your day at the club

The spaces to ask about

The club lists its wedding and private event spaces on its own catering and events page, and there are three worth asking about by name.

• The Presidential Lawn. The outdoor ceremony site, facing a lake with a waterfall, with the course behind it.
• The Rotunda Room. A round room with original rock walls and views out over the grounds.
• The Grand Dining Room. A long curved hall with floor to ceiling windows onto the course and the pond, white stone pillars and gold chandeliers. The club describes it as seating formal dinners of up to 150 guests.

There are also smaller rooms for a meeting or a rehearsal dinner sized group. Ask which spaces come with your date, because that answer decides your whole timeline, and ask it before you fall in love with a room somebody showed you on Instagram.

It is a private club, so start the conversation early

Las Vegas Country Club is a private golf club, not a venue that lives on a booking site. Weddings go through the club’s own event planner, and the weddings page is where that conversation starts. Email or call them, ask what a wedding on your date would involve, and ask whether membership matters for the space you want.

That is also the moment to ask about vendors. Clubs almost always keep food and bar in house and let you bring in the rest, but every club draws that line slightly differently, and the answer changes what your vendor list looks like.

Check the convention calendar before you set your time

This is the one piece of advice specific to this address. The club shares a neighborhood with the Las Vegas Convention Center, and during a big show the hotels around it fill up and the roads slow down. If your guests are coming from the Strip, a normal ten minute drive can turn into half an hour.

Look up your date on the LVCVA’s convention calendar before you lock a ceremony time. If a large show is in town that week, tell your guests to leave earlier than they think they need to, and put that on your wedding website in plain words. Late guests are the most common reason a ceremony starts behind schedule, and this is one of the few venues in town where you can see it coming months ahead.

The best time of day for photos here

Build the day backwards from sunset. The reason to get married on a golf course is the last hour of daylight, and at this club it is the hour when the low sun is in the grasses, on the water and through the pines all at once.

For an outdoor ceremony that means starting two to two and a half hours before the sun goes down. Your vows happen in soft light. Family photos happen right after, while everybody is still standing in one place. And the two of you get the golden hour out by the olive trees with nothing else on the schedule.

The season moves that start time more than couples expect. In late June the sun is up past eight in the evening, so a five thirty ceremony is still an early evening wedding. In late December it sets around four thirty, which means a two o’clock ceremony and a reception that is fully dark by six. Neither one is a problem. They are just very different days, and it is much easier to hear that before you sign than after.

If your ceremony has to run at midday, do a first look. Portraits before the ceremony, in the shade near the clubhouse, get you good photos of the two of you no matter what hour the ceremony lands on, and they keep the sunset hour free for a short second round out on the course.

Talk to me about your date

I like this venue because the good backgrounds are close together and I already know where they are. That matters more than it sounds like it does. Nobody wants to spend their cocktail hour following a photographer around a golf course while they look for a tree.

Every wedding I book, I photograph myself. The wedding photography page walks through how coverage and pricing work. If you are still comparing golf clubs, the Canyon Gate Country Club page covers a gated club on the west side and the Bali Hai Golf Club page covers the one right on the Strip.

When you have your date, tell me about it and we will find a time to talk. I hold dates for couples whose venue is already confirmed, so once the club has you on its calendar, reach out.