April Wedding at Black Canyon Inn

If you follow our work, you know that we love taking photos of our couples under the stars. It’s a tricky thing to pull off, but ever since doing our first Milky Way photo at a wedding back in 2017, we’ve been hooked. We’ll sometimes pull our couple out of the reception for 10 minutes or so to capture this, but if the dance party is poppin’ all night, we’ll occasionally go about it a bit differently. Such was the case at Michelle and Ryan’s April wedding at Black Canyon Inn.

If we do star photos with the couple during the reception, I (Jesse) will go outside to find a nice, dark area, set my camera up on a tripod, and take a few test shots. Then I will radio Moira to bring the newlyweds and it only take 5-10ish minutes to get a good shot. This also allows the couple to get to take a quick break from the chaos and to catch their breath.

Alternatively, we will sometimes wait until after the final send-off to go out and do star photos. This is a great option for couples who want to take advantage of every moment during the reception with their friends and family. In these instances, the couple goes straight from their send-off to our car (or on foot, if it’s dark enough nearby) to the location we’ve already picked out for astrophotography.

Afterward, we deliver the newlyweds to their hotel, or afterparty, or wherever it is they had planned on going after the wedding. In the case of Michelle and Ryan’s April wedding at Black Canyon Inn, the dark spot I had found to take star photos just so happened to be about 30 feet from the cabin they were staying in. A little morsel of serendipity to end the evening.

Michelle and Ryan, thank you both a million times for being so chill and fun to hang out with. It was the perfect way for us to kick off our 19th wedding season!