Salt Lake sits in a bowl. The valley floor runs flat from the lake to the foothills, and the Wasatch comes up hard along the east edge, close enough that a bench venue can hold warm light half an hour after the valley has gone flat and blue. We have photographed weddings across the whole of it since 2014, downtown and on the bench and up the canyons that empty into it, and the city's geography is the first thing we plan a timeline around.
· salt lake city ·
Salt Lake City wedding photographer.
A small studio photographing weddings across the Salt Lake Valley, from the east-bench gardens to the temples downtown to receptions that run past dark. Christopher Cook shoots every one.
· the valley, and its light ·
The light here is a mountain problem.
Two things shape a Salt Lake wedding photographically: the mountains to the east and how open the valley floor is. A venue on the east bench (Holladay, the Cottonwood foothills, the Avenues) keeps the sun longer and catches it warm against the slope, which is where we like to place couple portraits. Out on the valley floor the midday light is bright and open, and asks for a little shade at noon and a little patience for the evening. None of it is a problem once you know the building's orientation. We look up your venue's real sunset, mountains included, before we ever build the day.
That one habit is most of what a Salt Lake timeline consult is, and we wrote the whole method down in our guide to Utah wedding light by season.
· where we shoot ·
A lot of range inside twenty minutes.
Salt Lake gives a photographer real variety close together. We have shot the manicured gardens at Bellissimo Gardens at Tuscany on the east bench, with Mount Olympus filling the frame behind the gazebo, and the restored Victorian rooms and back garden of Eldredge Manor, fifteen minutes north in Bountiful. Downtown carries its own looks (the Capitol grounds, the brick and stone of the older blocks, the hotels couples use for a getting-ready suite and a ballroom reception), and the canyons that open into the valley are fifteen minutes from the floor when a couple wants pines and a creek instead of a skyline.
If your venue is up in the mountains rather than in the valley, our venue notes and the full portfolio are the fastest way to see how a day actually photographs there.
· temple mornings, valley evenings ·
Built around a sealing, then the rest of the day.
A lot of Salt Lake weddings are built around an LDS temple sealing in the morning and a celebration later in the day, and that shape changes how the photography works. We are not inside the sealing room, so the coverage centers on the exit (the doors, the first look at each other as a married couple, family on the temple grounds) and then carries through whatever the rest of the day holds: a luncheon, a ring ceremony for the guests who were not inside, an evening reception. We have written the whole approach down in our guide to LDS temple wedding photography so you know exactly what is and is not photographed before you book.
· how we cover the day ·
One photographer, the whole day, slowly.
Every wedding we take is photographed by Christopher, who founded the studio and has been shooting Utah weddings since 2014. The day usually runs the same shape (getting ready, a first look if the timeline wants one, the ceremony, a portrait window placed in the best light the venue has, and a reception we cover through to the send-off), and the finished gallery is delivered within four weeks. Collections start at $1,800 for four hours and go up from there. The full breakdown lives on the investment page, and where the calendar stands is on availability.
· before you book ·
Reading for a Salt Lake wedding.
· getting married in salt lake ·