San Bernardino courthouse wedding, then Prospect Park: Victoria and Walter
Victoria and Walter married at the San Bernardino courthouse and drove twenty minutes east for the portraits. It is the cheapest good wedding day we know how to photograph.
Victoria and Walter got married at the San Bernardino courthouse with their family standing around them, and then everybody drove about twenty minutes east to Prospect Park in Redlands for the photographs. The whole day cost a fraction of a wedding and produced the same pictures.
This is the shape we recommend most often to couples who tell us they do not want a wedding. The ceremony is short, legal and full of the people who matter. Then you leave, and the next two hours are yours.
Why the courthouse alone is not enough
Courthouse ceremonies are fast and the rooms are small, bright and full of other people's families. You get the vows, the ring and the kiss, and that is genuinely the important part — but ten minutes in a fluorescent room is not a set of pictures you hang. The portraits have to happen somewhere else, and the somewhere else is what makes the day look like a wedding.
- Prospect Park in Redlands is about twenty minutes east of the courthouse. It has an olive grove, terraced paths and long light through the trees in the late afternoon.
- Schedule the ceremony for early afternoon. The courthouse runs on its own clock and you want to be at the park when the sun is low, not at two in the afternoon.
- Bring one person to carry things. A dress, a bouquet and a phone do not travel well between two locations without help.
- The park is public. Weekday afternoons are quiet; weekends have quinceañera sessions and other couples on the same paths.
- Your family can come to the park too. Victoria's did, and the pictures of them there are better than anything we could have taken in the courthouse hallway.
What it costs
Our elopement coverage starts at $1,440 for four hours, which is enough for the ceremony, the drive and a full portrait session afterward — with no travel fee anywhere in the Inland Empire. Around here a courthouse-only package runs $450 to $750, a three-hour micro wedding $1,500 and four hours $2,000 to $2,500, so four hours at $1,440 sits under the local market for the same day.
How much does a San Bernardino courthouse wedding photographer cost?
Locally, $450 to $750 buys ceremony-only coverage of an hour or less. Three hours runs about $1,500 and four hours $2,000 to $2,500. Our elopement packages start at $1,440 for four hours, which covers the ceremony, the drive to a second location and the portraits, with no travel fee in the Inland Empire.
Where do you take photos after the San Bernardino courthouse?
Prospect Park in Redlands is our first choice — an olive grove and terraced paths about twenty minutes east, with good late light. The Redlands Bowl area and the citrus groves along the edge of town also work. Downtown Riverside is thirty minutes the other direction if you want architecture instead of trees.
Can our family come to a courthouse wedding?
Yes, within whatever the courthouse allows in the room that day, and there is no limit at all once you leave. Some of the best frames from Victoria and Walter's day are their family at the park afterward, which cost nothing extra and took fifteen minutes.
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Riverside, California · Inland Empire · Southern California