Some final tips for your winter Weddings in Southern California
Some final tips and advice for your winter wedding to wrap up this 4 part series.
While Southern California may not be subjected to blizzard like conditions or freezing temperatures, keep in mind that it may get cool for your guests. With many locations offering outdoor facilities for your wedding ceremony, here are a few suggestions for keeping warm and safe at your wedding:
- Provide your guests with warm beverages prior to the ceremony such as hot tea, coffee or hot chocolate. It helps them stay warm.
- If your facility offers portable heaters, make sure you know the cost to rent them and if they can be made available for your event should you require them.
- If your wedding and reception are outdoors and you discover it’s suppose to rain (or snow) on your wedding day, make sure you check to see if your facility rents or offers tents. If not, have ready the number of a few event tent suppliers in case you have to make that call early in the day.
- If it has rained the night before or in the morning prior to your wedding and you’ll be walking on grass or a slippery surface, make sure you check it out and walk it a few times to insure you won’t slip and fall.
- For your veil, carry small weights to attach to the end of them in the event of winds, especially the Santa Ana winds. Small weights can be fishing weights. Be sure to daub a little white paint or white nail polish on them so that they blend in with the veil.
In the end, make sure you have an emergency plan for sever winter weather. If you plan right, you will be sure to have a memorable winter wedding.
Capturing engagement photos in Los Angeles is almost like fishing in a well stocked lake, it’s almost effortless. There are so many spots to take engagement photos in the city center and surrounding areas. This weeks engagement photography location of the week takes us to downtown Los Angeles. The main photo in this post was taken atop an apartment complex off of Figeuroa Street in Downtown LA.. Fortunately, the couple lived in the complex and we didn’t ask permission to go on top. The only thing I wished I had was a flash light as I was looking around my photo gadget bag for my lenses. In other words, if you’re going to take photos atop of any building, you should take a long a flashlight. I found many opportunities to capture this couple in and around the building.
Engagement Photography in Los Angeles
In the black and white photo, I used the stairwell in the building to create an “after hours” mood where the couple rendezvoused in the stairwell for a private moment. I like to tell stories when it comes to engagement photography. I think the couples get more out of it, at least more than just a nice photo of them in a park somewhere.
I have a very short list of suggested spots to take your engagement photography. I have provided a link to the sites I could find online. Some of the pages have photos to give you an idea of what the place looks like so you can plan your shoot. In addition, you can get the addresses so you can get driving directions.
L.A. area Engagement Photography Locations:
- The Music Center (link is to the directions page)
- Anywhere in downtwon L.A. where there are building backgrounds
- In front of city hall on Spring Street
- The Central Library on 5th Street(very nice to grab a few images there)
- China Town (my personal favorite)
- Union station (link is to wikipedia and info about Unison Station with some photos)
- Olivera Street (when it’s crowded)
- In front of the Coliseum
- USC (My alma mater – many great spots on the campus – try Mudd Hall of Philosophy)
In part 1 of this series, I discussed, briefly, some winter wedding spots in Southern California. What I’d like to do now is briefly discuss some winter wedding favors as well as colors you may use for a winter wedding. You’re probably asking what does this have to do with wedding photography, well, a lot actually. You see, your photographer will be responsible for capturing your wedding day and if you are planning on having a winter wedding then there are some things that make it a unique wedding, like the favors and colors. Your photographer needs to be able to capture these and this is why I am providing some suggestions for them.
If you’re hosting a winter wedding, then you’ll want to seek out winter wedding favors, which by the way, if you’re looking for suppliers online, try this wedding favor site: MyWeddingFavors.com or type the keywords “winter wedding favors” or “Christmas wedding favors.” in to a search engine. You’ll be surprised at the amount of online weddings stores that offer these items. Note: You can try the advertiser on my site to the right side of this page
Some suggested winter favors may include:
- snowflake photo coasters,
- snowflake place card holders,
- hanging picture frames,
- snow globes,
- silver bells,
- and holiday cookies.
By displaying these favors, it provides many great opportunities for your wedding photographer and videographer to capture the elements of the this unique wedding day; so when family and friends look at your albums they will get a sense that you actually had a winter wedding.
Colors
With winter, comes the winter color pallet. While it’s suggested that the bride wear white, the groom may also want to wear a white tuxedo as well to keep within the “snow” feel of winter. Additional winter colors that can be incorporated in to your winter wedding theme are
- gold,
- white,
- soft gray,
- silver,
- light blue,
- red (pinks), or
- green.
These colors can be used through-out your decorations and even as colors for your bridesmaids’ dresses. For additional color ideas, think of nature’s offerings during the season: berries, holly leaves, pine cones, eucalyptus, snow and ice. Use colors from nature to accent your occasion.
In my next post, I’ll talk about winter wedding photography opportunities.
