A Wayfarers Chapel Wedding: Amanda and Sean's Glass Chapel and Clifftop Celebration
A real wedding at the glass Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes, with a classic car, a clifftop reception at Trump National, and a first dance on clouds. The chapel has since closed, which makes days like this one irreplaceable.
Wayfarers Chapel was one of the most extraordinary wedding venues in America: Lloyd Wright's glass-and-redwood sanctuary above the Pacific in Rancho Palos Verdes, where the walls were trees and the ceiling was sky. The chapel has since closed because of land movement on the peninsula, which turns every wedding we photographed there into something irreplaceable. Amanda and Sean's day is one of them.
They found us on The Knot a year and a half before their spring date, and their plan read like a South Bay dream: ceremony in the glass chapel at two, a classic car between venues, and a reception in the gilded ballroom at Trump National Golf Club, on the bluffs with the ocean below.
A Quiet Morning, Built for Candids
Amanda told us early that she wanted candids over poses, and that she and Sean were skipping a bridal party entirely. That brief shapes everything about how we shoot: fewer lineups, more moments. Her window portrait with the cascading orchid bouquet, a champagne toast with her siblings, and the details, a champagne diamond and black bands photographed on beadwork, carried the morning.
No bridal party is a legitimate choice more couples are making, and photographically it is a gift: the timeline breathes, and the coverage stays about the two people it should be about.
The Glass Chapel
Amanda arrived at Wayfarers in a classic silver saloon, and the ceremony unfolded the way that chapel always did it: candelabras and white orchids at the stone altar, redwoods pressing against the glass, and light everywhere. The hero image of this story, the two of them on the stone steps with her train spilling down, is why photographers treated this building like a cathedral.
For couples who dreamed of Wayfarers and lost it to the closure, our honest advice is that the feeling it gave, organic architecture, ocean light, intimacy, still exists at a handful of Southern California venues, and we are glad to talk through them. Our venue guide index is where to start.
The Bluffs at Trump National
Fifteen minutes down the coast, Trump National gave the day its second act: family photos on the ballroom stairs, portraits on the bluff with Catalina on the horizon, and a golden ballroom for the party. We watched the sunset clock all evening, and it paid off twice, once in daylight on the cliff edge, and again when the sky went violet and we stole two minutes for the dusk portrait.
Our first-hand Trump National venue guide covers exactly how we sequence this property, because the clifftop light is the whole game and it does not wait for the toasts to finish.
A First Dance on Clouds
Inside, the ballroom's gold ceilings and chandeliers set the stage, and their first dance happened on a floor of rolling fog, Amanda's ruffled train floating through it while the room glowed. An ice-sculpture monogram, toasts, and a packed dance floor carried the night from there.
A chapel, a coastline, and a ballroom in one day is pure Palos Verdes, and it rewards a photography team that knows every mile of that peninsula. We have photographed it for years, in every season and every light.
Planning a Palos Verdes Wedding?
From Terranea to Trump National to La Venta Inn, the peninsula holds some of the best coastal wedding venues in Los Angeles, and we know them first-hand. Read our Trump National guide, then check your date and build live pricing, or start a conversation. We photograph weddings across Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, and worldwide.
