Berkeley Botanical Garden Wedding Ceremony

Last summer I had the opportunity to second shoot for Victoria of Victoria Noelle Photography at a UC Berkeley Botanical Garden wedding ceremony. She is such a kind person and I had a wonderful time working alongside her. If you’re looking for a photographer in the Mendocino area, do yourself a favor and check out her website! 🙂

Because I LOVE the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden, I decided to make this post all about the wedding experience at the gardens. I have visited on multiple occasions, and shot an engagement session here earlier in the year. So you can imagine I was very excited at the chance to finally shoot a wedding here! Even with my sort-of-well-known distaste for redwood trees, I really do love the Redwood Grove. The way the light comes through the trees is everything photographers dream of. Aside from that, the amphitheater really adds a unique perspective (literally!) to your wedding ceremony. The rest of the garden was perfect for wandering around and getting the pre-ceremony photos.

I hope this post is helpful to you as you consider or plan your UC Berkeley Botanical Garden wedding. If you’re in the market for a photographer and like what you see here, please contact me for more info!

Botanical Garden Getting Ready Photos

So onto the wedding morning…starting with the groomsmen photos. We went into the garden for some individual and group shots. We had PLENTY of time because the girls were still getting dressed and taking their shots with Victoria. Because of the amount of time I had with the guys, we were able to get a LOT of variety in the shots you see below.

The Berkeley Botanical Garden Ceremony Details

And now we move on to the ceremony area details! I loved the way these two chose to decorate with a lot of wood tones and greenery. It really matches the woodsy feel of the Redwood Grove.

I wouldn’t normally show these photos in a blog post – they’d just go into the client gallery. But since the point of this post is to show you the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden as a wedding site, here they are! I really like the way that the guests all have a view down onto the ceremony site. Take it from someone who’s been short her whole life – I’ve spent a few too many concerts, productions, church sermons, and WEDDINGS with my line of vision cut off by a tall head in front of me. The amphitheater solves all such problems!

The Wedding Ceremony

For the actual ceremony, everybody enters from the path down front. The guests watch as the bridal party walks in, without having to turn their heads to watch down the aisle. The groom can choose to either face his bride walking towards him or have his back turned as his bride walks down the aisle (as in these photos) so that his first look is when she arrives

There you have it – a UC Berkeley Botanical Garden wedding ceremony. I love the way these photos turned out. I think that partially has to do with the unique setup of the ceremony site. The Botanical Garden is a really beautiful place to consider for a ceremony. If you’re considering it, I would be more than happy to shoot another wedding there!