South Lake Tahoe Elopement | Brandon & Lexy

Over my years of being a wedding photographer, the way I see the world has changed greatly. For a long time I wanted to photograph big, epic, environmental portraits and nothing else. I thought that creating eye-candy images would slingshot me into success. Instead, it started to leave me very unsatisfied. I would travel to a destination like Tahoe, Mammoth Lakes, or Yosemite with a goal of creating one big art piece. The thing was, being in a big beautiful landscape makes it really easy and it just started to become repetitive and I would just say to myself “cool, now what.” Because of this, I shifted my focus.

I wanted to focus on what made each couple and the people they surround themselves unique. I started spending a lot of time photographing outings with my friends and documenting stories in a creative way, completely unscripted. When I brought this unscripted style to weddings, the work I started creating was unreal. I found that for me to be my most creative, I have to be solely reacting to what is happening in front of me.

Brandon reached out to me in September of 2022 for a completely untraditional wedding in November. Coincidentally, my plans for the requested day had just changed less than 48 hours before his inquiry. He told me that he and his fiancé Lexy wanted to do a small ceremony in South Lake Tahoe with just their families. After the ceremony they would hang out downtown and go to a few bars and they just wanted someone to capture the day as it was. No scripting, no staging and no fluff. I, of course, accepted.

I had met Brandon at a prior 2022 wedding when he was an officiant, so I knew we were going to get along well but I could never have predicted just how well. He and I had some drinks together the night before with some good conversation and some gambling in the Bally’s Casino. After this, I knew we were going to have a good time the next day.

Both Brandon and Lexy’s families took me in as if I belonged. I never once felt like the hired help or the guy with the camera. I was able to capture true emotion and vulnerability.

Their families didn’t just win me over, they won over an entire local bar in South Lake Tahoe. We went to play bingo and ended up turning that into an unofficial reception. Brandon squeezed his way into being the announcer for bingo, he sang karaoke, got everyone in the bar to take a group photo and even bought a round for everyone. What a legend.

Lexy and I played pool together, we danced, we laughed and said ‘cheers’ to a dang good time. All day long her facial expressions had me laughing. She might be one of the funniest, most down-to-earth persons I have ever met. Honestly, all of them are and I could not think of two people better for each other than Lexy and Brandon.

Lexy and Brandon, thank you for letting me express myself. Thank you for making me feel like I was a real part of the family. When I think back to your special day I don’t even remember being there to take pictures. I just remember all the good times we had together. This was the best ending to 2022 I could ask for.

Cheers,

Nic