Intimate winter wedding at the Marriott Grande Dunes in Myrtle Beach

I was looking through my blog and realized I never posted pictures from one of my weddings at the Marriott Grande Dunes resort in Myrtle Beach. I recently finished the photos for this happy couple, who had a small, intimate wedding with family and friends at the Marriott on December 21st. I thought this would be a nice one to share.

The bride and groom, Dana and Diana, reminded me of my wife and me, with a mix of Spanish and English-speaking families. They told me they met in Peru, where Dana was working as a doctor, and Diana was an English translator. Dana could speak fluent Spanish, so they gave the wedding vows and speeches in both English and Spanish for the families. I really want to stop being so lazy and get better at Spanish for my wife’s family.

This wedding was a small one with no bridal party and only a few family and friends. So the couple only had me for 3 hours of coverage with no getting-ready pictures. I arrived a little before the ceremony was to begin on the balcony overlooking the ocean at the Marriott in Myrtle Beach. With the sun low in the sky, the palm trees and ocean showed up nicely in the background. The earlier sunset during winter months is great for photos, as long as the ceremony time is planned accordingly. Right after the ceremony, we took family photos, then portraits of the bride alone and of the two of them together on the balcony.

It was still about an hour before sunset after the family pictures, so the bride and groom went down and spent some time at cocktail hour by the pool. When we went down to the beach for photos, it was getting close to sunset, and the sun had fallen behind the hotels in the background. We got some beautiful shots of the two of them in the soft light. With a smaller wedding like this, the bride and groom are usually more relaxed and less pressed to be on a tight schedule, so I always get some fantastic pictures.

I stayed for just about 30 minutes of the reception. Just enough time to get some first dance pictures and the speeches. I’m always happy to do a smaller, intimate wedding like this one, especially during my slower times of the year, like December. Please let me know if you are planning a wedding at the Marriott Grande Dunes, and I would be happy to provide more information.