Neon Museum Wedding Photos

The Neon Museum is where old Las Vegas signs go instead of the landfill. It sits at 770 Las Vegas Boulevard North, at the top of downtown, and it opened to the public in October 2012. The collection has grown to 322 signs, and the visitors’ center is the shell shaped La Concha Motel lobby, which was moved here from the Strip in 2006 to save it from demolition.

Couples get married here too. The museum rents its North Gallery for ceremonies, and everything standing around you used to be lit up somewhere else in this city.

I’m McKenzie, and I’ve photographed weddings in Las Vegas since 2009. Both weddings on this page are mine, and they went completely differently. One brought a full wedding party in rust colored dresses and gray suits. The other was a couple and a few family members with bouquets. The museum fit both of them.

Why the Neon Museum works for a wedding

The first reason is that nothing else in Las Vegas looks like it. The signs are enormous, the paint is still bright after decades outdoors, and they stand close enough together that a photo taken here could not have been taken anywhere else. Nobody who sees your photos has to ask where you got married.

The second reason is color. Most wedding locations around Las Vegas are some version of tan, whether that is desert, rock or stucco. This one is red, yellow, teal and pink all at once, and it holds up next to a whole wedding party. The rust colored bridesmaid dresses further down this page sit right in the middle of that palette.

The third reason is that it is a real venue and not only a photo stop. The ceremony rental takes up to 50 guests, the museum provides bench seating for 32 of them, and there is room for everyone to spread back out along the paths afterward. A small wedding fits here without anybody standing in a road.

What it takes to get married and photographed at the Neon Museum

Booking the ceremony

The museum holds ceremonies in its North Gallery in a 60 minute window. It does not provide an officiant, so you hire a licensed Nevada officiant yourself. Museum admission is not part of the ceremony rental either, so Boneyard tickets get added separately when you want your guests to see the main collection. Daytime ceremonies stop in June, July and August because of the heat, and sunrise ceremonies take their place for those months. The museum’s weddings page carries the current details, and their calendar is what sets your date.

The photography rules, which surprise almost everyone

You cannot walk into the Neon Museum with a professional camera on a regular admission ticket. During a normal visit the museum allows casual snapshots on a phone or tablet, and cameras, tripods, flashes, lighting and other outside equipment are not allowed. Posed portrait photography is not allowed during general admission either.

Professional photography happens through a booking instead. That means a scheduled photo walk, a portrait hour, or a private photo shoot, and drones are never allowed in any of them. The museum asks that private shoots be booked more than two weeks ahead, and shoots in the Boneyard itself happen before the museum opens or after it closes, when the collection is not full of visitors. Read the museum’s film and photography policy before you plan anything, and book your museum time before you book me.

The marriage license

Nevada requires a Clark County marriage license before any officiant can marry you, and that errand is on you. Both of you go in person to the Marriage License Bureau downtown, a short drive from the museum. The fee is $102, you fill out the application online first, there is no blood test and no waiting period, and the license is good for a year. The county’s page has the current requirements.

The best time of day for photos at the Neon Museum

Morning or evening, and that is not only a preference about light. The Boneyard opens to booked shoots before museum hours and after museum hours, so photos among the main collection happen early or late by definition.

Daylight and dark give you two different places. In daylight the signs are painted steel and glass, and all the color comes from the paint, which is what you are seeing in most of the photos on this page. After dark the museum lights part of the collection and runs a projection show across the signs, and evening ceremonies get that version of the place.

Midday is the hard hour. The sun sits straight overhead, the ground is pale gravel that throws light back up into faces, and there is very little shade anywhere between the signs. It is workable, and I have worked in it, but it takes more moving around to keep everyone out of harsh sun.

Ready to talk about a Neon Museum wedding?

Book the museum first, because their calendar decides the date. Then tell me what you’re planning and I can build the rest of the day around that 60 minute window. Most couples who get married here want more than the ceremony itself: portraits beforehand, or a second stop somewhere else while you are both still dressed.

My Las Vegas wedding photography is booked by the hour, $300 an hour when you book two or more, and I am the photographer at every wedding I take. If it is only going to be the two of you, the Las Vegas elopements page walks through how those days usually run.

Couples who add a second stop usually pick the Welcome to Las Vegas sign at the far end of Las Vegas Boulevard. If you want something with no signs in it at all, Red Rock Canyon and the Las Vegas dry lake bed are both open desert.