Weddings at The Sanctuary in Long Beach

What this building gives you

The Sanctuary is a former church near downtown Long Beach, and it still looks like one in all the best ways.

Dark wood trusses run the length of the ceiling. There's a round stained glass window over the front, tall arched windows down the sides, and white walls everywhere else. During the day the light comes in through those windows and bounces off all that white, so your ceremony photos come out bright, soft and true to color.

Outside there's a brick garden courtyard with old wood doors. It works for a ceremony, a cocktail hour, or ten quiet minutes with your new spouse before everyone finds you.

Where we take you for photos

Before the ceremony, the stained glass windows. Standing between two of them for a first look gives you a frame no other building has.

After the ceremony, the altar under the wood ceiling, then the courtyard.

Then golden hour. There are palm trees on the streets right around the venue, and that late Long Beach sun does the rest. Give us fifteen minutes out there and you'll have the photo that goes on your wall.

Then the sun goes down

After dark the hall turns into a completely different room. The lights drop, the uplighting comes on, and the dance floor takes over.

That's where we want to be. Your people going all in, glow sticks up, nobody posing. We'll be right in the middle of it, because that's the part of the night you'll want to see again.

Madeline and Kevin's Sanctuary wedding

Same building, a completely different day. Madeline and Kevin did their first look out in the courtyard, kissed in the aisle with everyone on their feet, and walked out at the end of the night through a cloud of bubbles.

That's the point of a venue like this. It doesn't make every wedding look the same. It gives you a lot of different rooms, and light, to work with.

Planning a Sanctuary wedding

The Sanctuary is a Wedgewood Weddings venue at 600 East 5th Street in Long Beach. It holds up to 200 guests, with catering handled in house. Wedgewood lists outside vendors as allowed, so you can bring your own photo and film team. Your coordinator will confirm what your package already includes.

Every collection includes both of us, so one of us can be with each of you while you get ready, and the ceremony gets covered from the front and the back at the same time. Collections run six through twelve hours, all on the collections page. We also shoot Orange County, San Diego, Temecula and Palm Springs.