Maravilla Gardens wedding video.
Maravilla Gardens sits above the Santa Rosa Valley, with vineyards and the mountains behind it. It takes one wedding a day, which changes how a film gets made there: there is time to walk the property before anyone arrives, and no second event pushing you off the grounds at sunset.
Three places the day gets filmed
The ceremony garden
Tall hedges run down both sides, which is the useful part. They block the hard afternoon sun and bounce what is left, so faces stay evenly lit through the whole ceremony without a single light stand on the lawn.
The valley patio
Worth an hour before sunset. The valley opens up behind you and the light goes long and warm across the vineyards. This is where the portraits happen, and it is the reason to build the timeline backwards from sunset rather than forwards from the ceremony.
Dinner under the lights
String lights over the reception, which reads beautifully on a fast lens and badly on a phone. Toasts, first dance and the rest of the night live here.
What the one wedding a day actually buys you
Time. I can walk the grounds before anyone arrives, find where the light is going to be at five o'clock, and set up for it. Nothing gets rushed at the end of the night because there is no next event waiting for the space.
Filming at Maravilla this year?
I take a small number of weddings each year, and valley dates tend to go early.
Check your date