Chapel of the Pines - wedding services

Chapel of the Pines - wedding services Weddings.....your location.....your way. Serving the Carson Valley, Lake Tahoe and Reno areas. Where do you wish to get married? Contact us.

We will come to you anywhere in Lake Tahoe, the Carson Valley or Reno areas. Need some help deciding on a location? With almost 30 years of experience doing weddings in this area, we are very familiar with the many available options. We have a strong rapport with many other wedding professionals in the Tahoe area and will happily make reliable referrals for any other services that you might requir

e. There is something precious and sacred about this milestone in human experience. We never forget this nor take it lightly. It is an honor to stand witness to the magnificence of love!

Some days are like this: today I have had phone conversations with no less than 6 brides and grooms, calling for inform...
04/04/2025

Some days are like this: today I have had phone conversations with no less than 6 brides and grooms, calling for information and to make their reservations for their weddings. It is shaping up to be a busy summer!

I mention this on my web site, but when a couple becomes “mine” by confirming their reservations, I then go to work creating a custom ceremony for them. This means each ceremony is a little different, tailored to the desires of the couple.

Earlier I sent off a ceremony to a couple that called a few days ago, and this is their response:

“PERFECT! We both love it very much & already made
me cry. Thank you for your thoughtfulness & kindness, already making this a memorable journey, thanks to you!”

Now THAT’S what I like to see!

Here’s a photo of one of our previous weddings, created by our photographer Pete Rezac.

You can’t make this stuff up.So! I had a wedding today. At 15 minutes to the appointed hour, the bride calls me and th...
03/26/2025

You can’t make this stuff up.

So! I had a wedding today. At 15 minutes to the appointed hour, the bride calls me and the following conversation ensues:

Bride: “We don’t have our wedding license.”
Me: “Can you go back to your hotel and get it? I’ll wait.”
Bride: “No, we never got the license.”
Me: “Oh.” Much lamenting on the part of the bride and by that time I had collected myself enough to make a suggestion. By this time she was in tears. And it was 4:30. So I suggested we meet at the county clerk’s office and try to get the wedding license. Luckily, the clerk at the window was accommodating, and she knew who I was, so she got us set up. While my couple was getting their license, another couple that was already there walks out with their license and apparently they asked the clerk where to go to get married. My bride heard them and pointed me out.

Long story short: I married that sweet little couple right there at the table in the county clerk’s office while waiting for my other bride. They had been together for 14 years. They wanted to get married because the groom was having medical issues and the bride needed to be a spouse in order to advocate for him. The groom was hilarious, and both were very happy.

I never did find out from my first bride why they didn’t even make the apppointment to get their license. I gave them all the information like I do for every wedding couple. Thanks to the county clerk, they got their license and I married them as well.

The picture is of my sweet little couple, right after they became husband and wife.

03/01/2025

It’s anniversary time!

While Chapel of the Pines was founded in 1975 by my father and step mother, nine years ago today I officially took over operation of the business, leaving them to retire and hit the road in a motor home. Since then I have had the pleasure of doing approximately 800 weddings! I’d say about 95% of them were true elopements, last minute weddings with just the couple. The rest were what are sometimes called micro-weddings, small but intimate and still very special. I rarely do the big weddings anymore and I’m very happy with our elopements. I have a great team of photographers working with me as well, and over the years we’ve done weddings not just at Tahoe but also in Reno, Wilson Canyon, Carson City, Minden, Gardnerville, Dayton, Topaz Lake and Washoe Valley. We’ve done weddings on horseback, weddings in the snow and all others kinds of weather. We’ve done weddings in private homes, on river banks, overlooking lakes and in forests. And every couple has been different, every couple equally wonderful. I’ve been privileged to witness and play a small part in one of the most special times in these couples’ lives and for that I am very grateful.

I got to meet a couple of Dobermans at our wedding today. The larger one is a five year old female named Ember. The sm...
12/12/2024

I got to meet a couple of Dobermans at our wedding today. The larger one is a five year old female named Ember. The smaller one is just a little over 3 months old and his name is Zeus. He is going to be a big boy. My wedding couple was fun too: Trisha and Robert. Zeus chewed on anything he could and thought the sand on the beach was quite interesting. Ember stole the bag of dog treats right out of my camera bag! It was great fun meeting them all.

We went out and did a wedding for a very cute couple today! It was just the two of them, and the wedding was the beginn...
12/11/2024

We went out and did a wedding for a very cute couple today! It was just the two of them, and the wedding was the beginning of a three day stretch of celebration: today the wedding, tomorrow is Dilan’s birthday and the day after that is Erick’s birthday! They were very much in love.

I like to get my geek on once in a while, and I love statistics. It’s close to the end of another year and unless I boo...
12/09/2024

I like to get my geek on once in a while, and I love statistics. It’s close to the end of another year and unless I book a last minute elopement (believe me, it happens and we welcome those!) we will have done 43 weddings this year.

Just for kicks and giggles, I looked up some other statistics. These are for Douglas County, Nevada, which is the county in which we do most of our weddings. We also do weddings in California, in El Dorado county, as well as in other counties in Nevada, mostly Washoe and Lyon counties, but I didn’t break my numbers down for those places.

Anyway, in Douglas County in 2024, up to today, December 9, there were a total of 427 weddings performed, and there are a total of 447 wedding officiants licensed to do weddings in Nevada. Of those, I am familiar with several who made their transitions or retired, so that’s an approximate number.

What this all means is that we have done approximately 10% of the weddings in Douglas County! I happen to think that’s a pretty good ratio and I am pleased with the numbers for this year.

Here’s a sample of just three of the most recent weddings we’ve done.

Will we do yours next?

We had a lovely wedding couple this evening! Just their parents and sisters attended, a lovely early evening wedding.
07/24/2024

We had a lovely wedding couple this evening! Just their parents and sisters attended, a lovely early evening wedding.

Did a nice little vow renewal this morning. They had been married 27 years.There were happy tears.When I do a vow renew...
07/09/2024

Did a nice little vow renewal this morning. They had been married 27 years.

There were happy tears.

When I do a vow renewal ceremony I like to calculate how many months, days, weeks and hours they have been married.

Today, I said to them at the end of the ceremony: “Today, you celebrate not only 27 years of marriage. You also celebrate 324 months of hugs, 1,404 weeks of laughter, 9,855 days of patience, and 236,520 hours of love. That’s a lot of love and it is an excellent foundation!”

To my pleasant surprise, the groom had also calculated the exact number of days from their actual anniversary date, which they had not given me. It was so much fun because he gifted her with a pair of diamond earrings for their 27th anniversary!

It’s Gay Pride month and in honor of that we are offering a 10% discount to all LGBTQ+ couples scheduled to be held duri...
06/02/2024

It’s Gay Pride month and in honor of that we are offering a 10% discount to all LGBTQ+ couples scheduled to be held during the month of June.

The geek in me is very happy this evening. You may be asking why?WELL! I’ll tell you!So, I did two weddings today, and...
06/02/2024

The geek in me is very happy this evening.

You may be asking why?

WELL! I’ll tell you!

So, I did two weddings today, and the second one was one of my favorite packages that I offer through my wedding officiant business, Chapel of the Pines. This package includes both the ceremony and photography.

A few months ago I bought a new camera, which automatically uploads the photos I create with that camera into my IPad. Which means I don’t have to wait till I get on my computer to play with them. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still load them into my computer, edit and send them to the wedding couple.

But these SOOTC (straight out of the camera) photos are good enough to use right away, and I can text a couple sneak peaks to the couple so they have photos right away, as well as use them for social media.

PLUS! BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! I took some of today’s wedding photos and made a collage out of them, complete with my new favorite toy, a QR code going directly to my Chapel of the Pines web site, and posted it on my Google page. And of course, here as well.

Did I say the geek in me is very happy!

Oh, and I’m also happy that we (me and my photographers) also still use lights. No raccoon eyes for us!

We did a wedding today and had a ball with this couple. The weather was perfect too! I just want to show off a bit bec...
05/18/2024

We did a wedding today and had a ball with this couple. The weather was perfect too! I just want to show off a bit because this photo is what is called STOOTC. That’s photographer speak for straight out of the camera. I’ve got a new camera that will send my photos straight to my IPad or IPhone, so this shot was taken just a few minutes after the couple got married, and there is no editing done on this photo. Just a technically perfect shot. I also texted this image to the couple so they could have a good “real” camera shot right away.

I just love technology!

This past weekend was filled with beautiful weather, a snow day, and a clearing up day. I got to do a wedding on the be...
05/06/2024

This past weekend was filled with beautiful weather, a snow day, and a clearing up day. I got to do a wedding on the beautiful weather day, stay home on the snow day and another wedding on the clearing up day.

Here’s a photo from the clearing up day wedding. This couple was very much in love, and it was the first time getting married for the bride! She was very excited!

For this post I’m going to use photographer Pete Rezac’s words, as well as his photo. He summed everything up quite nic...
04/19/2024

For this post I’m going to use photographer Pete Rezac’s words, as well as his photo. He summed everything up quite nicely and he did an excellent job of creating this image during the ceremony.

“Mother Natures Intimate Church” Not all weddings are huge, have young couples, or happen in formal churches. I love working with my friend who marrys all types of people, ftom all walks of life, from all over the country and world! I think what I love about working with Karen and photographing her weddings, is I never - ever - know what I’m going we’re going to run into. It’s the challenge of the unknown and figuring it out on the spot that I love so much. It’s true that the venue is familiar, but weather, couples, tourists, weather, parking, weather, other weddings going on and did I mention weather are all wild cards for every event! This past Wednesday I feel Mother Nature made up to us with one of the most glorious days I can recall at Lake Tahoe in a while - I mean it’s always amazing at Lake Tahoe, but this past Wednesday was something special! It was so great to be a part of this couples day not only as the photographer but wedding witness too! I’m proud of the work from this one and my friend Karen for providing a great ceremony and experience for the couples she unites in marriage!

What a nice spring wedding! Our photographer Pete Rezac did a splendid job creating images for this wonderful couple fr...
04/17/2024

What a nice spring wedding! Our photographer Pete Rezac did a splendid job creating images for this wonderful couple from Texas.

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Stateline, NV
89449

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 9pm
Tuesday 9am - 9pm
Wednesday 9am - 9pm
Thursday 9am - 9pm
Friday 9am - 9pm
Saturday 9am - 9pm
Sunday 9am - 9pm

Telephone

+15309069336

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