El Dorado Casino Wedding | Reno, NV | Gabby + Dreu

Oh man, these guys. I adore them. They are both incredibly smart, they love craft beer, they work in politics, and, much like myself, Gabby is a prolific reader (in fact, she actually reads way more than I do). Wedding planning was tough for them and I respect that SO incredibly much. I struggle so much with the industry that I’m in as I find it to be excessive, rooted in commercialism, and full of unnecessaries. You know what you need to get married? You, someone you love and want to be with forever, and someone legally allowed to join you together (it’s pretty easy to get on the internet). When I find the couples for whom practicality trumps embellishment, it makes my heart sing, because it means that what is important to them is to share a special day with those closest to them. For me, this means that my most important job is to capture those interactions and less important is the details and all the pomp and circumstance that so often comes along with an American wedding. Lucky for me, I find that the overwhelming majority of my clients are of this breed: folks who want to celebrate their union with their friends and family and prioritize photos of them and those closest to them over everything else. For this, I am incredibly thankful.

Gabby and Dreu planned their El Dorado Casino wedding without realizing, at first, that it was also one of the biggest downtown festival weekends of the year: The BBQ, Blues and Brews Fest, held right outside the same casino door where they were to be wed. I LOVED IT. It created a chaotic and amazing spot to do portraits. The streets were PACKED with people and hilarity ensued. I unfortunately got so busy this summer that I never got a chance to blog their awesome engagement photos, and thought about perhaps delaying this post until after those, but frankly, when I went back over their photos to peek at them, there were too many moments that I loved too much to delay this Reno wedding post any longer!