Denver wedding
vendors we love
The caterers, florists, planners, bar teams and DJs we have stood beside on real wedding days — and would be glad to see on the call sheet again.
A list with nothing
riding on it
Most vendor lists you will find are paid placements. This one is not — there is no referral fee attached to a single name on it.
We are a five-person studio and we have been photographing weddings and events across Colorado for nearly two decades. That means we are in the room from the getting-ready morning through the last dance, standing next to whoever is plating the dinner, rebuilding the arch, or reading the room to decide when to open the floor. We see which vendors are still calm at 9pm.
So this is simply the people we have worked with more than once and would happily work with again. Where a company has closed, rebranded or moved on to another line of work, we have taken them off rather than leave you calling a disconnected number.
If you want a recommendation for your particular venue, date and budget, ask us. That is a better use of ten minutes than working down any list, including this one.
Catering
The caterer shapes more of the day than almost anyone: the timeline, the room, how long people stay at the table. These are the Denver kitchens we have photographed most often.
Epicurean Catering
Started as a family-owned operation and grew into one of the larger food-service and hospitality groups in Colorado, working across off-premise catering, sports and venue management.
Occasions Catering
From ten guests to ten thousand, with an event designer on each one. A founding sponsor of Denver’s We Don’t Waste programme since 2009, redirecting event meals to people who need them.
Footers Catering
A second-generation family business — Anthony and April Footer took it on in 2010 — now catering more than 600 events and feeding upwards of 75,000 guests a year.
Biscuits & Berries
Gwen Neely founded it in 1991 and took Emerging Business of the Year inside five. Still the most service-forward kitchen on this list.
Catering by Design
Designers and chefs working together rather than in sequence, which is why the plates tend to look like part of the room instead of an afterthought.
Relish Catering and Events
Launched in 2012 around the idea that catering is an experience rather than a delivery. Everything from black-tie dinners to backyard barbecue, and honest about where the food comes from.
Buffalo Gals
Santa Maria-style live-fire grilling over red oak on custom hand-crank grills — tri-tip, buffalo flank, linguiça. The best-smelling cocktail hour in the state.
Floral design
Flowers are the thing couples ask us to photograph most, and the thing that photographs worst when it is done cheaply. Every studio here builds with real texture and real seasonality.
Olive & Poppy
Builds around scent and texture as much as colour — garden roses against a well-chosen fern. No two of their installations have looked alike to us.
Project Floral
Architectural, restrained work that holds up in a white-brick room where there is nowhere for a weak arrangement to hide.
Calla Blue Florals
A second career built on training at the School of Floral Arts, and it shows in the discipline of the bouquets.
Kimball Floral
Sue Kimball started with her own wedding flowers and is thirty-plus years in. Ask anyone who has worked with her; the answer is always about Sue first and the flowers second.
Poppy & Pine
A Stanley Marketplace shop working direct from growers, which is how they get stems you will not see in a standard wedding order.
Planning and coordination
A good planner is invisible in the photographs and obvious in how the day runs. If you hire one thing off this page, we would tell you to hire this.
Privé Event Design
Planning and floral design under one roof, which removes the seam where those two usually argue.
A Touch of Bliss
Full-service planning through to day-of coordination, and genuinely well-travelled — they run destination weddings in both directions out of Colorado every year.
Cloud Nine Event Company
A background running events at scale before moving into weddings, and it shows on the days when something goes wrong and nobody in the room finds out.
Bar and beverage
Bar service sets the pace of a reception more than the playlist does.
Peak Beverage
Their own liquor store and their own bartender training programme, so there is no waiting on a delivery and no renting glassware separately. Bar lines stay short.
Decor and rentals
Lounge furniture, tabletop and the pieces that turn a blank room into somewhere specific.
Bear Event Design
Luxury lounge and decor pieces, built one at a time. Formerly Bear Aesthetic.
Music and entertainment
The dance floor is the hardest part of the night to photograph and the easiest to get wrong.
Elite Entertainment
DJs who will take your playlist or build one, and will step in as MC so the night keeps moving without anyone having to chase it. Formerly Elite DJ.
Hair and makeup
Getting-ready coverage is the first hour of the story. It helps when the team is calm and on time.
Clementine’s Salon
Dani and John Everson opened at 33rd and Tejon in 2011 and added the Stanley Marketplace salon after. Reliably calm on a getting-ready morning.
What actually makes a
wedding run well
Hire the planner before you hire anything decorative
The single biggest difference between a day that feels calm and a day that feels like admin is whether someone other than you is holding the timeline. A coordinator costs less than most floral budgets and changes more about how the photographs feel, because you are actually present in them rather than being asked questions.
Ask your caterer what time dinner really ends
Sunset is the one thing on a wedding day nobody can move. If dinner service runs long, it runs into the only twenty minutes of good light you get. Caterers who have done hundreds of weddings will tell you honestly, and will build the service around the light if you ask.
Florals photograph best when they are not symmetrical
An arch that is heavy on one side and open on the other gives us somewhere to put you. A perfectly balanced one leaves a couple standing in the middle of a wreath. Every florist on this page already knows that; it is worth saying out loud when you brief them.
Bar lines are a photography problem
If there is one bartender for 150 guests, a third of your reception photographs are the backs of people queuing. Two service points is usually the fix, and it is a cheaper one than it sounds.
About this list
Do you get a commission for recommending these vendors?
No. There is no referral fee, no kickback and no paid placement on this page. Every company here is one we have worked alongside on real events and would be glad to see on a call sheet again.
How do you decide who goes on the list?
We have photographed them, more than once, and they made the day better. That is the whole test. We are on site from the getting-ready room to the last dance, so we see how a vendor behaves when the timeline slips and nobody is watching.
Can you recommend a vendor for a budget or a style?
Yes, and we would rather do that than have you work down a list. Tell us the venue, the date and roughly what you are working with, and we will point you at the two or three that fit.
Do we have to use a vendor from this list?
Not at all. Plenty of venues have their own required or preferred lists, and we work happily with anyone. This is a starting point, not a gate.
Are these vendors only in Denver?
Most are Denver-based but they travel across the Front Range and into the mountains — Estes Park, Evergreen, Larkspur, Winter Park and the resort towns. Ask about travel before you rule anyone out on distance.
Where can I see their work in your photographs?
Throughout the venue guides on this site. Each entry below links to venues where we have photographed that vendor's work, and those pages carry full galleries.
Still building your team?
Tell us your venue and date and we will point you at the two or three vendors who actually fit — no list, no referral fee, just the ones we would book ourselves.
Get in touch