Excelsior Wedding Photographer

Excelsior sits in the west metro — roughly 25 minutes from downtown Minneapolis and inside the Minneapolis–St. Paul metro. I photograph weddings across Excelsior weekly and know the venues, the light, and the timing quirks unique to this corner of the Twin Cities.

Excelsior has the best walkable downtown on Lake Minnetonka — Water Street storefronts, a public commons on the water, and the historic docks all within three blocks of each other.

Couples choosing a Excelsior wedding photographer usually also compare nearby suburbs — I regularly shoot in Deephaven, Shorewood, Chanhassen, Tonka Bay, Greenwood, all covered by my metro-wide flat rate with no travel fees. If your ceremony is in Excelsior but your portraits are downtown Minneapolis or on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, that's a routine day for me, not an add-on.

Excelsior is the most photogenic small downtown on Lake Minnetonka. Water Street's preserved storefronts run three blocks straight down to Excelsior Commons and the public docks, which means a couple can get brick-and-awning street portraits, a lakeside commons ceremony, and dock-and-water sunset photos without ever moving the car. The Commons is a city park with a permit process, and I help couples handle that early.

My standard Excelsior route is to start on Water Street in the shade an hour before the ceremony, use the Commons lawn or bandshell for the ceremony, and then walk the couple to the docks for the last thirty minutes of light over Excelsior Bay. The bay faces west-northwest, so summer sunsets there are exceptional. On busy July weekends I scout the dock traffic in the morning and pick the quieter of the two piers.