Japanese Friendship Garden Night Ceremony

Kathy and Reuben planned a simple ceremony when they booked their wedding venue. They chose Balboa Park for their Japanese Friendship Garden night ceremony. The only problem was that when they booked it they did not realize that their ceremony would be at night. 

This sometimes happens when couples are booking their venue in the late fall when it begins to get darker earlier. Some venues have to operate as usual during hours that they are open to visitors but will rent the space after hours for events. In this case, we ended up with a ceremony that would start nearly an hour after the sun would set. 

While this might have been a problem for most photographers, I saw this as an opportunity. The first positive thing about this is that it meant that we would get all of their portraits done ahead of time. We had access to the lower gardens and walked around doing portraits while the public started to make their way out of the venue. Getting these portraits done early meant that the couple can go back and relax before the ceremony. 

The second positive thing about the night ceremony is that it felt very intimate. The darkness was a challenge, but luckily I like to use off-camera flashes so I was able to paint the scene with light. I even put a flash far away in the garden behind them to create a little depth to the images and some separation of the wedding party from the dark background.

I’m happy that Kathy and Reuben found me because I feel that I was the right photographer for the unique challenges to their wedding day.