Sunset Gardens Wedding Photos

Sunset Gardens is a wedding venue on four acres of gardens at 3931 E Sunset Road, in the southeast valley. It has been hosting weddings since 1983, it holds up to 285 guests, and it has a chapel, garden gazebos, a pavilion and several banquet rooms all inside one gate, so the whole day happens on one property.

I’m McKenzie. I’ve photographed weddings in Las Vegas every year since 2010, more than 300 of them, and Sunset Gardens is one of the places I keep coming back to. Every photo on this page was made here, at different weddings in different years, so what you’re looking at is the venue rather than one couple’s best day. Mint and grey under the pavilion in the afternoon. A ballgown on the hedge steps at golden hour. Purple uplighting on the dance floor at the end of the night. Same four acres, every time.

If Sunset Gardens 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 Sunset Gardens looks like through a camera

The trees are the whole thing here, and they give you two different venues in one day. They are forty years old and they cover almost every path on the property, and there are strings of small lights running through all of them. In the afternoon that canopy works like a giant softbox, so faces are lit evenly and nobody is squinting. After the sun goes down, the same trees turn into the background, thousands of little points of light behind you, and I don’t have to bring anything in to make a night portrait work.

The second thing is a set of wide stone steps with hedge walls on either side of them. The hedges run taller than a person, so there is no sky, no parking lot and no neighbor’s roof in the frame. Just green on both sides and the venue’s glass doors at the top. That is where I take couples when I want a clean portrait and I have five minutes. Several of the portraits in the gallery came off those steps at different weddings, and they don’t look like the same photo, because the light coming through the hedge changes so much across an afternoon.

The third thing is that you get to choose what your ceremony looks like, because there is more than one structure to stand under and they look nothing alike. There is a white wooden gazebo with a shingle roof, open on every side, sitting out on the lawn. And there is the pavilion, a raised round dais with white columns, a tile roof, and a chandelier hanging in the middle of it. Both are in the gallery below. If you already have a picture in your head of your ceremony photos, walk to both when you tour, because they give you very different pictures.

Inside, the banquet rooms are white and neutral with chandeliers, which means the room takes whatever color you hand it. You can see that in the gallery. One wedding here reads as mint green and greenery under warm chandelier light. Another is the same kind of room washed purple by uplighting during the first dance. If you care about a color palette, this is a room that holds it instead of fighting it.

What it takes to photograph a wedding here

Your reception room usually picks your ceremony site

Sunset Gardens pairs each indoor room with the outdoor space beside it. The venue’s own page puts the Terrace Room next to a private gazebo and opens the Garden Room straight out into the pavilion. The Sunset Room and the Cellar are the other two rooms they name.

So the two decisions get made together on your tour, and the ceremony site is the one that shows up in most of your photos. Ask which pairing you’re being quoted before you fall in love with a room.

Nobody gets in a car

Four acres sounds big and it isn’t. The gardens, the ceremony sites and the banquet rooms all open onto each other, so guests walk from the ceremony to dinner, and you and I can step outside for ten minutes of portraits after the lights come on and be back before anyone notices you left.

That matters more than it sounds like it should. Every drive on a wedding day comes out of your portrait time, and a venue that keeps the whole day inside one gate hands those minutes back to you. Stallion Mountain out in the east valley works the same way, and there is a full list of the Las Vegas venues and locations I photograph at if you’re still comparing.

Ask how an outside photographer works before you sign

Sunset Gardens does a lot in house. Coordination, catering, bar, DJ and photography are all things they can handle themselves, which is part of the appeal for a lot of couples. That also means bringing in a photographer you picked is a conversation to have on the tour rather than after the contract is signed.

Their FAQ page is the place 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.

Summer is easier here than at most garden venues

Las Vegas runs past 100 degrees for months, and at most outdoor venues that means your guests sit in folding chairs in full sun. Here the mature trees cover most of the property and both ceremony structures have roofs on them, so a summer ceremony is shaded rather than baked.

It’s still hot, and I won’t pretend otherwise. What the shade changes is the light, which stays soft and even on everybody’s face through the hours when other venues go harsh. If you’re weighing a summer date, I’ve written about what a summer wedding in Las Vegas is actually like and about the best time of year to get married here.

The best time of day for photos at Sunset Gardens

The half hour after sunset is when this venue looks like itself. That’s the window where the lights in the trees start reading in a photo while there is still a little color left in the sky, and every string light portrait in the gallery came out of it.

So build the day backward from there. For an outdoor ceremony I ask for a start about two hours before the sun goes down. That leaves room for the ceremony, then family photos while everyone is still gathered in one place, then ten or fifteen minutes for the two of you once the lights come on.

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.

A winter wedding here is the case where a first look earns its keep, because the sun is gone by late afternoon and a first look moves your portraits into the daylight you actually have.

If you’re getting married at Sunset Gardens

What I like about photographing here is how much of the work the venue already did. The trees handle the light all afternoon and become the background at night, the hedge steps are a finished portrait spot a few seconds from the ballroom door, and nothing about the day needs a car.

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 Sunset Gardens, email me at mckenzie@msweddingimage.com or send me a message here. Tell me your date and what you have planned so far, and we’ll go from there.