Venetian Las Vegas Wedding

The Venetian Resort sits at 3355 South Las Vegas Boulevard, on the north half of the Strip. It opened in 1999 and was built as a set of reproductions of real buildings in Venice: the Doge’s Palace, the Campanile, the Rialto Bridge and St. Mark’s Square, with a canal running through the middle of the shops. The part that matters to a photographer is the front of the building, where a long covered walkway runs behind a row of stone arches.

I’m McKenzie. I’ve photographed weddings in Las Vegas since 2009, more than 300 of them, and that walkway is a spot I keep coming back to.

The photos on this page come from two different days with two different couples. One is a wedding: a bride in a satin ball gown with a tiara and red roses, a groom in a black tux with a red bow tie, photographed along the front of the resort. The other is a couples session in everyday clothes, in the same walkway and out on the sidewalk under the Doge’s Palace facade. Neither set is a ceremony, and I would rather say that plainly than let a page imply otherwise. The walkway is what couples are usually asking about when they ask about photos here anyway.

Why the colonnade at The Venetian photographs so well

Three things about this walkway decide what your pictures look like.

The light. The walkway is covered, with open arches running down one side of it. That is a very large, very soft light source pointed sideways at whoever is standing there, with a roof overhead keeping the sun off their faces. Look at the bridal portraits in the gallery. Nothing in them is lit by a flash. That is the light my work is built on, since I shoot light and airy by default, and here it shows up on its own every day from mid morning to late afternoon.

The floor. Red, white and dark marble in a big diamond pattern, polished enough to throw a reflection. A long train reads beautifully against it. In the photo at the top of this page her skirt is swinging out across the diamonds, and the floor is doing as much work in that frame as the arches are.

The scale. Carved column capitals, four leaf openings above the arches, green iron lanterns hanging the whole length of it. Aim down the walkway and it runs on like a city street. Turn around, walk out to the sidewalk, and you can put the entire Doge’s Palace facade behind two people, theater banners and all. Not many places in town hand you a corridor and a monument thirty steps apart. If Strip architecture in general is what you’re after, I wrote about Las Vegas Strip wedding photos and where they actually come from.

What it takes to get married and photographed here

The ceremony spaces

The resort runs weddings through its own Celebrations department. The ceremony it is best known for is the signature white wedding gondola: you say your vows in the boat on the indoor canal while your guests watch from the bridge in St. Mark’s Square. There are indoor rooms, garden and terrace spaces and an atrium as well. I’m not going to print room names and seated counts here, because resorts revise both of those more often than anyone updates a blog, this one included. The resort’s own weddings pages carry the current list, and your Celebrations planner can give you the seated number for your actual room in writing.

Bringing your own photographer

Settle this one before anything else at this property. The Venetian sets its own rules about outside photography and videography on property, those rules have changed over the years, and couples comparing notes online have been told different things in different years. So read the resort’s current weddings policies and procedures page yourself, then ask your planner two questions and get the answers in writing: whether an outside photographer is allowed for your ceremony and your portraits, and what fee or certificate of insurance comes with that. Any working wedding photographer already carries the insurance, so that half is paperwork. The other half is worth knowing before you sign anything.

My side of it is simple. When you book me, you get me. I photograph every wedding I book, personally, and the wedding coverage page lays out what a full day with me includes. If The Venetian is on your list, tell me your date and I’ll tell you honestly what I think.

The marriage license and your witness

Nevada wants a valid Clark County marriage license in hand before your officiant can perform the ceremony. Both of you show up in person at the Marriage License Bureau, 201 East Clark Avenue downtown, with government issued photo ID. It’s open every day of the year, the fee is about $102, and there’s no blood test and no waiting period. The county’s requirements page has the current details.

Nevada also wants one witness at the ceremony, not two, and the only rule about that person is that they cannot be the officiant. If it’s just the two of you, I can be your witness. You don’t have to go find anybody. I went through the whole question in what Nevada actually asks for.

Summer, and why this walkway helps

June through September is hot here, over 100 degrees most afternoons, and from late June into September the monsoon can put a storm on the schedule with very little notice. The covered walkway is the reason I would still book portraits at this address in July. You’re in shade the entire time, nobody is standing in direct sun, and the light is coming in sideways off the arches. It isn’t air conditioned and it’s still a Las Vegas afternoon, so bring water and keep the session tight. I wrote more about planning around the heat in my guide to a summer wedding in Las Vegas.

The best time of day for photos at The Venetian

There are two answers here, because there are two backdrops.

Inside the walkway, the shade widens your window. Mid morning through late afternoon all works, and what changes across the day is where the patches of sun land on the floor. You can see them in the last of the wedding photos in the gallery, falling across the marble beside the couple. The real constraint in there is people rather than light. This is a resort frontage on the Strip, so the walkway fills up as the day goes on, and early morning is the emptiest it will ever be for you.

Out front at the facade, wait for the end of the day. The dusk photo in the gallery was made when the sky still had color in it and the building’s lights had come on, and that combination lasts about twenty minutes. Sunset in Las Vegas moves by roughly three and a half hours across the year, from close to 8 in the evening in late June to about 4:30 in the afternoon in early December, so look up the sunset time for your actual date before you decide when to step outside.

If you want portraits here with no wedding attached, that’s a session and I photograph them all the time. Three of the pictures on this page are exactly that. Here’s why I want every couple to do one.

Let’s talk about your wedding

If The Venetian is on your list, I’d love to hear what you’re planning. Tell me your date, which space you’re looking at, and whether you’ve already asked the resort about an outside photographer, because that answer shapes everything else. Las Vegas and Henderson are home for me, so there’s no travel fee anywhere in Clark County. I hold dates only for couples whose venue and date are already confirmed, so once that contract is signed, send me a message and we’ll find a time to talk. If you’re still comparing resorts on Las Vegas Boulevard, the Park MGM page covers a much more modern building further south, and the High Roller page covers another landmark down the same side of Las Vegas Boulevard.