Notes on the light
The Resort at Pelican Hill sits on a ridge three hundred feet above the ocean, facing west, which means the last hour of the day arrives without anything in the way. The light comes in low across the oval event lawn, catches the columns of the rotunda, and turns the Pacific to hammered silver behind it. Because the ridge is open, there is no hard shadow to fight, just a long warm fall-off that flatters everyone standing in it. We plan the day backward from that hour.
The spaces, and how they film
The Rotunda. The Rotunda is the reason most couples book here: a domed, colonnaded pavilion of Italian Renaissance proportions set at the very end of the ridge, with a hundred and eighty degrees of open ocean behind it. On film it does something rare, giving you a piece of architecture and a horizon in the same frame. We shoot it wide for scale and then step in close, because the columns make natural framing for two people.
The Event Lawn. The oval event lawn runs up to the rotunda between clipped topiary, century-old olive trees and rows of lavender. It is a processional built for a lens: a long straight approach with symmetry on both sides. Because the resort holds one wedding a day and the lawn sits apart from the hotel, nothing wanders into the back of frame.
Mar Vista. The Mar Vista ballroom and La Cappella carry the evening once the light goes. The interiors are warm and Mediterranean rather than hotel-neutral, so the reception footage keeps the same palette as the ceremony instead of switching to something colder.
The films, so far
We have made three films at Pelican Hill: Rahul & Prianka, a wedding with enough color in it to hold its own against the ocean; Randy & Denise, a teaser whose ceremony ended with white doves released over the aisle; and Jerry & Mia, shot largely from inside the rotunda looking out through the columns. Three weddings is enough to know this property properly: where the processional starts, when the sun clears the columns, and how long the good light lasts on that ridge.
Timing the ridge
Pelican Hill hosts a single wedding a day, and the event lawn sits away from the main resort, so the whole ridge is effectively yours. That matters here because the best twenty minutes of the day happen in one place and you do not want to share them.
A late-afternoon ceremony puts you at the rotunda while the sun is still high enough to light faces, then leaves the golden hour free for portraits along the lawn and the olive trees. Blue hour over the water is the last thing we shoot before the reception takes over, and it is usually the frame couples remember.
Have you filmed a wedding at Pelican Hill before?+
Yes, three times: Rahul and Prianka, Randy and Denise, and Jerry and Mia were all married there, and you can watch all three films on this page. We already know where the processional starts, how long the good light holds on the ridge, and where to stand inside the rotunda so the ocean fills the columns.
When is the best light at Pelican Hill?+
The last hour before sunset. The ridge faces west over open Pacific with nothing in the way, so the light arrives low and warm across the event lawn and turns the water silver behind the rotunda. Blue hour just after is the other window worth protecting.
Where do you film couple portraits?+
Along the oval event lawn and among the century-old olive trees and lavender that edge it, then out at the rotunda itself for the wide frames. The columns give us natural framing, and the ocean does the rest.
Do you travel to Newport Beach for weddings?+
Yes, often. Newport Beach and the Orange County coast are right in our home range as a Los Angeles based studio, so there is no destination travel involved.
What a wedding here actually costs
Checked July 2026
Pelican Hill is unusual. Almost no resort at this level publishes its minimum, and this one publishes the whole number, tax and service charge included. If you are trying to work out whether a venue is in reach before you spend an afternoon on a site visit, this is the most honest page in Orange County.
- Minimum total spend
- Eighty six thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight dollars and seventy five cents for a one day wedding. That figure already carries the thirty-one percent staff and house charge and the tax, so it is what you would actually pay, not a base to build on. 2026 rate
- Food and beverage minimum
- From fifty thousand dollars, before service charge and tax. 2026 rate
- Site fee
- From fifteen thousand dollars. 2026 rate
- Per person
- Roughly four hundred to five hundred dollars for dinner service. 2026 rate
- Deposit
- Thirty percent of the food and beverage minimum and the site fee, plus tax and charges, to hold a date.
- The catch worth knowing
- Minimums move with the day of the week, and the resort does not publish that breakdown. A Saturday in June and a Thursday in February are not the same venue financially. Ask for your date specifically rather than the starting number.
- Spaces
- The resort does not publish square footage or seated capacity per space. It names an Event Lawn and the Mar Vista Ballroom, where the dressing suite sits. For capacity you have to ask.
Figures as published by The Resort at Pelican Hill, checked July 2026. Minimums vary by day of week and the resort does not publish that breakdown.
