Chaska & Chanhassen Wedding Photographer

Chaska sits about 32 minutes southwest of downtown Minneapolis, and it gives you something most suburbs can't: a real historic core. The brick-and-limestone blocks around City Square Park — the Walnut Street Historic District — photograph like a small river town, and I build fifteen minutes into most Chaska timelines just to walk couples through them. Firemen's Park and the Clayhole sit at the edge of downtown when you want water and green in the same frame, and the Lake Jonathan trail corridor is my pick for engagement sessions that need open sky.

That range is exactly why I like working as a Chaska wedding photographer: one day can move from historic streetscapes to the Arboretum's cultivated gardens to rolling prairie golf land without anyone spending real time in a car. Add the Chaska Event Center and the Chaska Community Center to the map and you have more usable backdrops per square mile than almost anywhere else in the southwest metro.

Chanhassen is the closer of the two — roughly 25 minutes from Minneapolis — and it carries its own set of backdrops. Lake Ann Park is my first recommendation for couples who want water and trees without a drive, and Lake Minnewashta Regional Park, right on Hazeltine Boulevard, is the quieter alternative. The Chanhassen Dinner Theatres anchor the town's event scene, and Paisley Park hosts private events.

Because the two cities border each other, I plan Chaska and Chanhassen weddings as one map. Getting ready in Chanhassen, ceremony at the Arboretum, golden-hour portraits in downtown Chaska — none of those legs is a long drive, and Hazeltine and the Arboretum are only about five minutes apart. Timelines out here simply feel calmer than they do in the city, and I use that slack to chase better light instead of traffic.

The two venues everyone asks about both sit in Chaska. At Hazeltine National, the thing to plan around is clubhouse-to-tee timing — the walk between where you get ready, where you marry, and where the best light lands means the timeline needs a cushion, and I build one in. At the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, ceremonies happen at permitted locations, so lock in your site with the Arboretum before we design the portrait plan. The gardens change completely by season, which is a big part of why it's one of the most-photographed wedding venues in Minnesota — the palette you marry in front of in June won't exist in October.

One honest warning: Saturdays at both venues fill 12+ months ahead. If you're holding a date at either, get the rest of your vendor list moving early — photography included.

My collections are priced the same everywhere in the Twin Cities metro, and there's no travel fee for Chaska or Chanhassen. Emerald is four hours at $2,700 — right for an Arboretum micro wedding or a short ceremony-and-portraits day. Pearl is eight hours at $3,900 and includes a second photographer, which earns its keep at a spread-out venue like Hazeltine where cocktail hour and couple portraits run at the same time in different places. Sapphire is twelve hours at $4,600 for full getting-ready-to-send-off documentary coverage. Eloping instead? Two-hour elopement coverage starts at $2,700, and hair and makeup can be added to any collection for $150.

After the wedding, sneak peeks arrive within 48 hours and your complete edited gallery is delivered in four to six weeks. Every wedding collection also includes a free engagement session — most Chaska and Chanhassen couples use theirs at the Arboretum or Lake Ann Park.