I recently had the opportunity to join Shanteria and Derecius for their Las Vegas wedding. They got married at the Luxor Hotel and we discovered that the Luxor does not allow outside wedding photographers for ceremonies. Actually, the Luxor hotel doesn’t allow any cameras inside the ceremony except smartphones! Nonetheless, I still flew out to Las Vegas to shoot their wedding portraits in the dessert and around the strip.

I arrived in Las Vegas four days before their wedding so I could work on some personal projects, a couple other portrait jobs, scout locations for their wedding portraits, and have some personal time since I’ve only driven by Vegas. For their portraits, I found an awesome dessert location in Red Rock National Park area. The Vegas strip is an obvious choice and screams Vegas, so that was on the list.

Planning all logistics of the locations was a little tricky. Between traffic, the distance of the locations, people, wedding times, dinner reservations, and other variables it took me a bit to make sure we would have the time. On their wedding day, we had from 3pm to 5:40pm (almost 3 hours) to get everything done. They had dinner reservations at the Bellagio Hotel at 6pm, so we couldn’t be late.

To ensure it was possible, I drove to all of the locations during the times and in the order I planned for us to be there the day before. It was about an hour round trip to the desert, the famous Vegas Sign was about 12 minutes from their hotel at the Luxor, and the Bellagio was about a ten-minute drive from there. With all of the traffic and other factors, we had about 1.20 hours to get all of the photos we needed. 

On the day of their wedding, rain set in. It only lasted until the afternoon, so by the time we were ready for Shanteria and Derecius’s portraits, it was just really overcast. The overcast clouds worked out well to our advantage to create some nice dramatic skies, but the rain caused a little slower than usual traffic, especially during rush hour. Even with all that, we made every location with plenty of time to spare.

One of the biggest challenges we had was fitting everyone in to my tiny happy meal rental car. Shanteria’s dress took up most of the front seat! :) Here are a couple of my favorite photos from their destination Las Vegas wedding.

You can also check out their Booth Riot! Atlanta photo booth photos from their wedding reception back in Atlanta.

My name is Matt Druin and I’m an Atlanta wedding photographer that specializes in unique, offbeat weddings for all awesome people! Not only do I shoot amazing Atlanta weddings, but I also travel frequently for destination weddings, and weddings all over, with no travel fees in the US for amazing wedding photography. I also shoot Atlanta engagement sessions for newly engaged couples. I’ve even been known to travel, and far, for engagement sessions too! Plus, we have our amazing Atlanta wedding photo booth, Booth Riot!

Contact Atlanta Wedding Photographer Matthew Druin

Email [email protected]

Phone 678-551-0115

Address 225 Parkway 575 #66 Woodstock, Georgia 30188

Portfolios www.matthewdruin.com

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