Colorado Springs Wedding at the Pinery at the HillWedding Details:

When you shoot their proposal and are there for the wedding the whole day has a different feel for you personally.  For Brian and Laura the engagement happened at Long Lake in Ward, CO.  The day is one that you could describe as rather relax and celebratory.  We started with the getting ready photos followed by a first look.  At this point giving of a large bag of skittles is only appropriate with a letter to bring some tears out.  We continued from there to take them to get some photos and video out on the site.

Overall we love the view but would have wanted less parking lot and something grassy to put them in the mountain direction.  As we were wrapping up and the drone was starting to fly some good 25+ mph winds picked up and blew everyone away.  Well . . . kinda.  It was good motivation to go inside and continue some others later.  The ceremony was indoors followed by a cocktail hour reception.  As the night went on some chill time outside outside for the two of them seemed to be just what they needed.  With the wind greeting us earlier we have no complaints to getting some additional time.

The Pinery at the Hill Review:

One of the favorite things of the The Pinery was the views.  As implied by the hill reference the venue is situated on a hill overlooking the area.  To one side you get the downtown of Colorado Springs and Pikes peak to the other direction.  As with most venues the women get a bright and spacious room for getting hair and makeup done whereas the guys are in a smaller corner space with a TV and comfy chairs.

The ceremony is likely one of those that would need to be done inside as the Veranda would not be large enough for the average wedding.  I think the default thought is that you would have a short center aisle but I think it might work just as well to have a long aisle or a different center point with a better mountain background.  For someone getting married offsite in something like a church this might be the ideal space for the reception as the ballroom area is huge accommodating large groups.  While we were there there were two parties.  Upstairs in the other ballroom there was a 50th anniversary party.

Probably one of the more unique things is they control the catering and entertainment provider which we get as they can cause the most headache.  We noticed that the catering meals for both parties were the same so it must have either been the lucky night for the caters or perhaps the way they do it.  The only thing that was odd was the entertainment being a little rigid on what kind of lighting the videographer was using for the night.

Additionally, related to lighting there were some gobo lighting that did some bizarre white light on the formal entrance.  Having been in theatrical lighting you notice things that no one else would have likely noticed so we are likely splitting hairs.