Small beachfront wedding at the Avista Resort in North Myrtle Beach

During my slow photography season I like to revisit some previous weddings I haven’t posted pictures from. I choose to highlight this wedding from April 6th, 2019 because it was my first time at the Avista Resort in North Myrtle Beach. This was small, simple destination wedding with just the bride, groom, their daughter and close family and friends. I arrived before the ceremony at the bride’s room on the top floor of the Avista Resort for getting ready pictures with the bridal party. I was also working with Balzotti Creative, a great videographer I work with frequently. You can check out her YouTube video embedded in this post.

Emmaleigh and Levi’s Wedding from Balzotti Creative

The Avista Resort has some very nice, large suites for the bride to get ready in with a great balcony view of the pools and ocean. Even in early April, you can see that North Myrtle Beach was starting to get crowded. I loved the shots of the bride out on the hotel balcony, pictures during her hair and makeup, as well as some of the getting ready shots between her and her daughter. The groom didn’t really care about having getting ready pictures of himself, so I just met them down on the beach, shortly before the ceremony, and took some pictures with him and his family. They had a very pretty ceremony setup with a beach arbor, a heart carved into the sand, and some starfish and flowers decorating the aisle. Sadly, I can’t comment on what the Avista Resort would be like for a wedding reception. Checking on their website they do appear to have a ballroom that can seat 200 guests, hopefully I’ll get to check out the ballroom at a future wedding.

Right after the ceremony, we did a quick picture with the entire wedding group with all the guests. When it’s a small group, I always recommend getting everyone in for a picture together. We had a bit of a hazy, overcast afternoon. The kind of day that makes the ocean look blown out and grey. However, on the positive side of this, the light is nice and soft and I didn’t have to deal with harsh shadows during the portraits. I got some really cute pictures of the bride, groom and their daughter having fun on the beach together. As well as some romantic portraits by the ocean between the two of them. At the end I took some portraits of just the bride. She had a really beautiful dress and bouquet. After this it was time for the bride and groom to leave for their private dinner so the videographer and myself were done for the evening. If you are having a small, simple beach wedding like this one in North Myrtle Beach please let me know and I would be happy to do it for you!