I recently shot a wedding at Twenty-Eight Twelve in Valrico, FL. If you're a wedding photographer in the Tampa Bay area and haven't had a chance to shoot this venue then you are missing a great opportunity for some nice images. Wedding Planner WCG Events ran the show and did a great job!
The venue itself is an old house with a large backyard. The interior is very nice with wood floors and a big staircase, victorian furniture, grand piano... tastefully done all around.
It's not big. The ceremony itself is held outside (reception, too) but there are so many great places to take pictures both inside and out.
Shooting outdoors can be tricky on a bright day but on a cloudy day it's a dream. I used a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS lens for most of the ceremony with no fill-flash necessary. This enabled me to shoot with wild abandon with no worries about harsh shadows. Of course, a cloudy day sometimes means rain and we were forced to stop the ceremony and move under the back porch eventually but as I told the bride, "These are the things that make a wedding memorable."
The thing I really loved about this venue is the variety of backgrounds that were available to me. There aren't many places where you can shoot the bride (through a chandelier) reclining in a well-appointed room and five minutes later shoot the wedding couple in front of a barn!
There's great texture there as well (bricks, etc) and they have fountains in the pool which are nice for shoot-through.
Let me warn you that if you have a cute daughter in your wedding she will be photographed almost as much as you. As the father of two girls (3 and 5 years old) I'm a sucker for little girls in white dresses. :)
It was great fun shooting there and my bride and groom were very accomodating every time I would grab them and ask for "one more shot."
Visit my website for more of my tampa wedding pictures.
