Hartley Botanica Wedding in Somis, Ventura County

Some wedding venues transport you into another world, where when you step on the grounds you forget the city or town surrounding it. Hartley Botanica is one of those special places, where you are surrounded by lush, tropical vegetation. A Hartley Botanica wedding is an amazing event to attend.

Wedding Preparation at Hartley Botanica

We start with the wedding preparation in the bridal ready room, which has beautiful decor and lighting (love, love, love the mirrors and lights).

First Look in the Botanical Gardens

Our couple opted for a first look, which makes it so much easier to get couple photos before all the events and festivities. There is this picturesque stone arch in the gardens, surrounded by bamboo and other tropical backdrops.

Hartley Botanica Wedding Photography

We then proceeded to do the wedding couple portraits around the botanical gardens.

And here is that beautiful stone, circular arch.

Hartley Botanica Wedding Ceremony

The wedding ceremony location is just as enchanting. The venue does get dark very quickly because of the dense vegetation, but we specialize in low-light photography. It especially gets amazing when the lights dim and the candles kick in with a lovely glow.

Wedding Reception

The wedding reception at Hartley Botanica is outdoors, surrounded by all of the lush vegetation and trees.

The wedding reception and dance floor is softly lit by string lights that dangle from overhead, but it’s important to light the venue correctly as it gets quite dark at night.

Lowlight Night Photography at Hartley Botanica

We hopped back over to the wedding ceremony location to get more couple portraits. The glow of the Christmas lights and candles just makes every single photo enchanting.

It enchanting and haunting to be in this forest-like setting at night, in the dark, surrounded by twinkle lights and candles.

We love it when our couples have smoke in some shape or form at a wedding (cigars, hookah, marijuana), since we can light that smoke up in awesome and amazing night photos.

I love the way the backlight lights up the smoke from the cigars, framing our lovely bride and groom with wisps of smoke.

Hartley Botanica Wedding

This is a great example of a Ventura County wedding at the picturesque and beautiful Hartley Botanica, a gorgeous botanical garden in Somis, CA. Make sure to look around our wedding photography blog for more examples of weddings in Ventura County. This location is known for the lush and dense vegetation, creating a surrounding that doesn’t look at all like Southern California or Ventura County. It’s easy to forget that you are surrounded by wine vineyards and ranches. The ceremony location is easily one of the most photogenic spots for a wedding, especially as it gets dark and at night.

One thing to make sure of when choosing a wedding photographer with a wedding venue like this botanical garden is choosing one that has experience with low light photographic situations. This venue gets very dark very quickly due to the tree cover and lush and dense vegetation. This means that a wedding photographer can’t get those golden hour photos or use the sunset like usual. We specialize in low light photography and shooting in dark locations, even to the point of our couple being lit by candlelight.