Out of all of the amazing wedding venues in the Raleigh & Durham area, the Umstead hotel is one of the most illustrious. With the interior decked out in Italian marble, blown glass chandeliers and service found only at 5-star resorts, every wedding here is simply amazing. Sara & Bryan’s Umstead Hotel wedding took advantage of everythis this amazing property had to offer.
The happy couple opted to hold all of their events at the property. Having an Umstead hotel wedding gives you so many different options regardless of rain, shine, hot or cold. In this case, with their wedding being in August, everything was held indoors because August in North Carolina is just not a fun time to be outside. With both of them getting ready at the hotel we had lots of time to take preparation, family & bridal party photos prior to the wedding ceremony.
The ceremony was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! It’s also one of the examples I give to others about why you hire a professional photographer. With it being so hot outside, they opted to have an indoor ceremony. The room itself was draped in white fabric and was light to match their wedding colors. You’ll see in the below photos they are HUGE disney fans so their wedding colors were more pastel. While it makes for a beautiful room, trying to photograph a pastel lit room (on white which bounces the color everywhere), without completely destroying the room with flash is not for the faint at heart. In the end, knowing what our equipment was capable of, the choice I made on “how” to photograph the ceremony was the right one – preserving the colors in the room and left the skin tones normal.
After our couples portraits, they had a chance to see the room BEFORE all the guests entered (which is one of my favorite things to photograph). While they were there, they took a moment to practice their first dance while no guests had entered. This made for an amazing photographic bookend as they also danced after everyone had left to wish them farewell during their bubble exit.
The reception was an absolute blast!! You’ll see from their wedding photos below that their entire day was what so many weddings embody. Tears, laughter and everyone celebrating the creation of their new family.
I hope you enjoy the below photos from their Umstead Hotel wedding! As always, if you’d like to know more about their wedding of would like to talk with me about photographing yours, please reach out to me!
Wedding Dress – Reem Acra
Hair & Makeup – The Makeup Culture
Flowers – The English Garden
Cake – Cindas Creative Cakes
DJ – Bunn DJ Company / Randy Bennett
Planner – A Southern Soiree
Officiant – Perry Hardison
