Category Archives: Wedding Venue

Jill and Brenden – A Wedding

September 1, 2017 by admin | Comments Off

Happy Labor Day Weekend everyone! Hope you are all home safe and sound on this Friday night.

Chris and I had the great pleasure of shooting a wedding last weekend. Jillian and Brenden were married in Steilacoom, WA in front of the beautiful Puget Sound on an old time bandstand with their family and friends all watching with joy in their eyes.

Jill tried very hard to stay out of sight of her soon to be husband, and was successful!! Woohoo!! This was not an easy task. Brenden’s first look at Jill was as she was being escorted by her father down the grassy isle. His smile was golden. She was breathtaking. It was a great event, one we will not soon forget.

I hope you enjoy some of the photo selections I chose for their blog. Congratulations, you guys! I hope Chicago treats you well:)

~Lynette and Chris

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Sumner Wedding Venue – Laurel Creek Manor

January 27, 2011 by admin | Comments Off

In an earlier post I had mentioned something about working on a project for one of the best wedding venues in Pierce County, WA, actually one of the best venues in all of Western Washington, in my humble opinion: Laurel Creek Manor.

We have had the honor to shoot a few wedding there over the years, both in photo and video. And while photos from those events can be found here on this blog, a special project that we were working on was a promotional video for the manor. That video was centered around an actual wedding, and since we mentioned the venue in a previous post we thought that we would now present that video to you.

Laurel Creek Manor is located in Sumner at the base of the hill leading to Bonney Lake. The five acre estate is surrounded by bulb farms that give you a private country setting with fabulous amenities! Among the property is two acres of landscaped English gardens, a beautiful and unique wedding arbor, two large terraces equipped with surround sound, pathways, Italian fountains, private on site parking, and a historic barn.

Inside the manor house includes elegant architecture that is drenched with exquisite European fixtures. With exclusive use of the facility for every event, you could relax and enjoy the wedding from start to finish whether it is inside, outside or both! The manor house boasts a large great room with dark wood floors, stone fireplace, and multiple French doors leading out to a beautiful covered porch and large terrace. Upstairs you will find private changing rooms for the bridal party including a Groom’s Changing Room with plush chairs, unique architecture and large restroom. The bride and her bridesmaids will enjoy the large Bridal Suite with fabulous seating, private balcony, cathedral windows, air conditioning, walk-in closet, and a pink marble bathroom!

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Getting Married in Pierce County, WA?

February 19, 2010 by admin | Comments Off

So 2010 is the year that you are planning to get married? Maybe 2011 or 2012? Or maybe you’re already married. Great! Congratulations.

Well, we are in the process of collecting nominations for 10 best places to get married in Pierce County, WA (we’re actually planning to produce a video that features these places). So if you have your venue or church picked out, let us know what it is and where it is so we can add it to our list. (of course, it helps in the venue is beautiful and not your backyard). At the top of our list so far is Laurel Creek Manor and Rock Creek Gardens.

So let us know your thoughts. Drop us an email at info@chrismckennaphotography or look us up on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/mckennavideophoto ) and leave a note there.

We look forward to hearing from you. And we promise not to try and sell you something–unless you want us to. 🙂

Blessings,

Chris.

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Laurel Creek Manor – Another Great Place to Get Married

October 4, 2009 by admin | 2 Comments

A few weeks back, we had the opportunity to photograph a wedding at one of the nicest places that we’ve ever had the privilege to shoot at: Laurel Creek Manor.

As I previously posted, Dee and Zac’s wedding was great. They were a great couple and with this awesome wedding venue (and also for other events) it was truly one of the highlights of our wedding photography career.

Laurel Creek Manor, located in Sumner, WA, has everything that a bride and groom could want in a venue. It has a large, beautiful suite that the bride can use to get ready, a separate groom’s area, lots of windows with great light, manicured gardens, and large, outdoor ceremony and reception area, and plenty of room to move indoors should the weather take a turn for the worse. If you saw our previous entry, you’ll notice that there are a lot of areas to get some unique and wonderful photographs. Laurel and Kirsten were great to work with as well as the rest of the staff.

I would recommend Laurel Creek Manor to any couple who are looking for a great venue. Visit them online at http://www.laurelcreekmanor.com/ .

Enjoy the video!

Blessings,

Chris.

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One of the Best New Places to get Married in Puyallup, WA

May 6, 2009 by admin | 3 Comments

We are happy to help promote Rock Creek Gardens as one of the best places in Puyallup, WA to get married.

We met Gracie at a Chamber of Commerce function a few weeks back and she invited us out to come tour their new facility. And what can we say-we were blown away by how incredibly beautiful this facility is. Rock Creek Gardens provides 5 acres of secluded gardens featuring Koi-filled ponds, beautiful waterfalls, and luscious green lawns nestled among some soaring evergreens.

They offer:

  • a newly renovated bridal suite;
  • ceremony and reception seating for up to 300 guests;
  • rental of white reception tents, banquet and buffet tables, ceremony and reception chairs;
  • a catering room;
  • onsite parking attendants and parking for up to 150 cars;
  • complete privacy;
  • and absolutely endless opportunities for pictures.

If you are in the need of a venue for any occasion, we would highly recommend you consider looking at Rock Creek Gardens. www.rockcreekgardensvenue.com 253-389-2304.

God’s blessings.

Rockcreek Gardens

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Hello blogging world!

April 15, 2009 by admin | Comments Off

Hello world. Hope that this post finds you well.

Well, let me be honest for a moment. I have known about blogs–and I’ve been using them for a while. I had my photo blog entwined with that of my other business and thus it got lost. So this is my effort to untangle them and keep my photo efforts on their own. You may see some video on this site, but the video is to highlight my photography and not the video portion of myself-although recognition for my video is always welcome 🙂 .

So here we go…

First, an introduction. My name is Chris McKenna. I have been a photographer for as long as I can remember. I remember picking up my fathers 35mm SLR camera when I just a wee lad, and probably broke it trying to figure out how it worked. Sorry Dad-I’ll replace it soon. Anyway, my parents gave me their old 110 camera when they moved into the Polaroids in the late 70’s, and I purchased my first SLR in the early 80’s and I have never looked back. Photography has always been my love, and right now it is my passion. I love digital photography and what it allows me to do. I am currently a member of Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (www.wppionline.com) and the Pierce County Professional Photographers Association (www.pcppa.net) and am just three photographs shy of earning my Professional Photographers Certificate from the New York Institute of Photography.

In 2004, my wife and I started McKenna Video Services and were up and operating in 2005. We are now heading into our 5th year in business and we are happy to have made it this far. Operating in Puyallup, WA has had its challenges, but we love what we do and will push through those. In 2007, we formed MVS Wedding Productions to focus on wedding video as well as photos.

Like photography, my video background began over 20 years ago and over the years we have continued to hone our editing and shooting skills as technology has evolved. We are currently members of the Association of Video Professionals and WEVA International (www.weva.com) as well as a handful of business memberships including the Puyallup/Sumner Chamber of Commerce. Besides video production, which can be quite expansive (including weddings, corporate training, web video, trade show video, memorials/funerals, etc.), we also create photo video keepsakes (montage), transfer 8mm and 16mm film to DVD, convert video tape (VHS, VHS-C, S-VHS, 8mm, Hi-8, beta, mini-dv, and mini-dvd) to DVD, DVD/CD/Video Duplication, convert videotape to digital media (Quicktime .mov, Windows Media .wmv, and Flash .flv), limited digital media recovery, slides and photographs to .jpg, and many other services. If you don’t see it listed here, that doesn’t mean that we don’t do it, but if we don’t chances are we know someone who does. And all of our services can be customized, personalized, and individualized to create exactly the video that our customer wants-something that the competition won’t do. We plan to use this forum to help educate our customers and to share our thoughts on certain subjects.

In the next week or so, you will see a number of posts from me as we plan to migrate posts from the last year on the other service, share some customer comments about our photography, post helpful hints and insights, and other topics related to photography.

God’s blessings on your day,

Chris.

Also posted in Architectural, Baby and Children Portraits, Engagement Photography, Event Photography, Family Portraits, General, Landscape and Nature Photography, Photography Tips & Techniques, Portraits, Prom, Senior Portraits, Shot of the Day, Sports Photography, Underwater, Wedding Photography, Wedding Show Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , |