Nevada
More weddings happen in Clark County than anywhere else in America, and the reason is administrative rather than romantic: Nevada requires no waiting period and no blood test, the marriage licence bureau is open late, and a couple can arrive in the afternoon and be married the same evening. Everything else about the market follows from that. What visitors consistently miss is the landscape. Twenty minutes west of the Strip, Red Rock Canyon is a thirteen-mile escarpment of Aztec sandstone under the Bureau of Land Management. An hour north-east, Valley of Fire is a Nevada state park of red rock formations that photograph like nothing else in the country. The neon is available at midnight; the rock is the reason to come at dawn. Heat is the real constraint and it is not a matter of comfort. From June through September, daytime highs sit between 105 and 115°F, ground temperatures in open desert are considerably higher, and an outdoor session in the middle of a July day is genuinely dangerous. Summer work here happens at sunrise, and the schedule is not negotiable.
October through April is the season — warm days, cold nights, clear air and low sun that suits the rock. March and April add desert wildflowers after a wet winter. May and September are hot but workable at the ends of the day. June through August is extreme: sunrise sessions only, finished by eight in the morning. Late summer brings a brief monsoon with flash-flood risk in the canyons.
Wind-carved Aztec sandstone in deep red and white, an hour north-east of the Strip. The Fire Wave and the Pink Canyon are the two frames worth the drive, and both need to be walked to before the heat.
A thirteen-mile escarpment of red and cream sandstone twenty minutes from the Strip. Calico Basin, just outside the fee area, gives most of the same rock with none of the reservation system.
The boneyard of retired Vegas signage, some of it relit. The most distinctive night location in the city and the only one where the light is genuinely under control.
Seven stacks of fluorescent boulders standing thirty feet out of flat desert, twenty minutes south. Absolutely singular, entirely exposed, and busy from mid-morning.
The sidewalks are public and the casinos are not, which is the whole rule. Everything from the pavement is available; step through a door with a camera on a tripod and you are being asked to leave.
These come under the Las Vegas rate: a photographer travels out from the city at no extra charge, and the session is priced exactly as it would be in Las Vegas itself.
Same day. Nevada requires no waiting period and no blood test, and the Clark County Marriage License Bureau issues licences until midnight, seven days a week. A couple can land in the afternoon, collect a licence, and be married that evening — which is the single reason this is the highest-volume wedding market in the United States. Photography is usually the thing booked furthest in advance, not the ceremony.
Yes to both, and they are different authorities. Red Rock Canyon is a National Conservation Area under the Bureau of Land Management, which requires a commercial filming and photography permit, and the scenic drive operates a timed-entry reservation system in peak season. Valley of Fire is a Nevada state park with its own commercial photography permit and a per-vehicle entrance fee. Both applications are handled as part of a booking.
On the public sidewalks, yes, handheld and without a permit. The casinos themselves are private property and prohibit commercial photography inside without prior permission, which extends to their forecourts and the walkways within their grounds. In practice a Strip session works from the pavement and the pedestrian bridges, which is where the best angles are anyway.
Only at sunrise, and that is a safety limit rather than a stylistic one. From June through September highs run between 105 and 115°F, and open desert ground is far hotter than the air. Sessions in those months start before dawn and finish by eight in the morning. From October through April there is no such constraint and the light on the rock is much better anyway.