Wedding season has officially begun! Elizabeth & Randy's wedding last month set the bar very high. I got to spend a lot of time with them during their engagement photo shoot, so I knew this one was going to be a lot of fun. I will admit, I am extremely lucky to live in the wedding capital of the world. Not only does it keep me very busy, but the average bride that does choose to get married in Vegas is typically on the chill side. Not exactly dealing with Bridezillas here and Elizabeth couldn't be any further from that if she tried. I've actually gone looking for a term that is the complete opposite of Bridezilla for her, surprisingly there is not much out there. I guess not to many people are lucky enough to get such a cool bride. She has inspired me, I am now determined to think of a term for anti-Bridezilla now. All I have seen that come close is Briderella or uberBride, not bad, but not good enough. I think I am going to go with Bridetastic, yeah definitely BrideTASTIC! (If anyone can think of something better, please feel free to leave it in the comments.)

Now to move on to the actual wedding. It was held at the Sam's Town Hotel and Gambling Hall, on the second level balcony of their gorgeous Mystic Falls Park. Even though I annually visit the Mystic Falls for their amazing Winter Wonderland light and water show, I had yet to see a wedding held there. Boy was I impressed! The balcony had a perfect panoramic view of the entire atrium and completely set the mood for this intimate and romantic ceremony. Everything went off without a hitch, even the adorable twin flower girls made it down the isle with very minimal coaxing.

The reception was moved down the hall to the main ballroom. This place was a photographers dream, the lighting was perfect and instead of chandeliers they had rows of bulbs running in square patterns throughout the ceiling, giving all the photos a fabulous background glow. Once we finally got a chance to break away for a private shoot, the sun had gone down and the atrium of the Mystic Falls Park was pitch black. Thanks to my second shooter Tyge, we were able to play with a few lighting options and actually came away with some of my favorite bridal portraits to date. ~ Mike H

...but this might have been my favorite pic of the night, a groomsmen getting his freak on...