About this vendor
Erica Mendenhall is an award-winning wedding photographer in Palm Springs, California. Specializing in luxury destination weddings and architecture, Erica’s signature style blends design-driven elegance with authentic emotion, ensuring every couple’s special day is beautifully preserved. With over two decades of experience, her deep understanding of lighting, composition, and the unique charm of Palm Springs venues has made her the go-to photographer for couples seeking breathtaking imagery that tells their story. From intimate elopements to grand celebrations, Erica’s expertise ensures every moment—big or small—is artfully documented with sophistication and heart. Whether you’re dreaming of a sunlit ceremony against the desert mountains or a lush garden celebration, Erica Mendenhall Photography is committed to turning your vision into timeless memories. Call today to schedule your wedding consultation.
Details
Business Attributes
- Woman-owned Business
Destination Weddings
- Destination Wedding Packages
Photo Shoot Types
- Bridal Portraits
- Day After Session
- Engagement
Photo & Video
- Digital Files
- Online Proofing
- Photo
- Printed Enlargements
- Second Shooter Available
- Social Media Sharing
Photo & Video Styles
- Classic
- Documentary
- Lifestyle
- Modern
Wedding Activities
- Getting Engaged
- Rehearsals & Parties
- After Party
- Wedding
- After Party
Awards and Affiliations
2020 'Best of Weddings'
Best of Weddings
The Knot independently assesses vendors for this award—it’s never self-reported. We base it on firsthand experiences from real couples and guests, and they must have a 4.5-star average across 7+ reviews in the qualifying year.
Reviews
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5
out of 5.027 reviews
Erica is AMAZING!! We are SO glad we hired her. The quality of her work is absolutely incredible, and the quality of her character is just as great. She was so kind and helpful fro...
m the very beginning, and throughout the ceremony/ reception, she directed us and kept us right on track for each of the photo scenarios we planned together. She also helped us decide which moments we wanted photos of- she is truly experienced with photographing weddings, because she was able to walk us through things we never would have thought of on our own. Furthermore, communication throughout our entire experience was excellent; thorough, professional, and with great kindness and enthusiasm. I could tell you how beautiful her work is, but I have attached photos so that you can see for yourself! We are so happy we hired Erica, and we would recommend her over and over again!
Erica Mendenhall Photography (EMP) were so great to work with and we highly recommend them! We originally heard about EMP after a recommendation from our venue and after scrolling ...
through their dreamy wedding photo portfolio and talking through our wedding goals over the phone, we knew that they would be perfect for our wedding day. We were having a destination wedding, so we booked EMP as our photographers without meeting in person, but we were 100% confident that they would be amazing!
Unfortunately, our wedding could not go ahead as planned due to Coronavirus, but we had an amazing engagement session with EMP at the Palm Springs windmills. Our engagement photos were beyond amazing! Erica really got us to open up in front of the camera and the results were fantastic. We will treasure these photos forever!
In addition to the amazing photos, EMP were always easy to get in contact with, were such a pleasure to work with and we plan to work with them again when we are able to have a wedding celebration in the future. We would give them six stars if possible!
Erica and her husband were very patient when last minute changes came into play for our timeline on the big day and they were very intentional with lighting and positioning to get ...
the perfect photo.
Erica and her husband Brock are the best team! We had them for out wedding and they out shinned themselves. They both worked extremely hard and we all had fun together!:) We felt s...
uper comfortable with them and they are so kind-hearted with an artistic eye for photos. Would definitely recommend!!!
Great photographer. Very professional, trustworthy and talented. She did everything we asked for and more. I would recommend Erica to everyone
Erica is absolutely amazing. She worked with our budget to create a package that would be perfect for our needs. Our photos are like something out of a magazine! Nothing less than ...
perfect. I would recommend her to everyone I know and I would certainly use her again! She made photographing my wedding day effortless and most importantly the photos are timeless and classic!
Professional and passionate! Outstanding Erica is cheery in her personality and goes beyond to make your moments become lifetime I cannot thank Erica Mendenhall enough for her arti...
st eye, passion and truly owning every detail to make our epic proposal/photoshoot work flawlessly. You may be looking for a photographer to capture your perfect moment but, I can tell you she isn’t just a photographer, she is a visionary. She helps make the moment! Thank you!
We had the best experience with Erica Mendenhall Photography! From day one, Erica took her time to go through every possible detail with us! She was the only vendor (for our wedd...
ing) that we worked with that actually called us on the phone to go over the process. Nowadays, that’s rare! But by doing so, we were able to get acquainted and found out she is a true professional!
After talking to her, we knew there was no point in talking to other photographers. Erica knew her stuff and her sweet voice and personality made us feel so comfortable with her and the whole “picture-taking” process!
Erica has years of experience which comes in handy because it’s more than likely your first time getting married, or taking professional pictures, so you want it to be perfect! Erica Mendenhall and her husband Brock are amazing at what they do and we have great pics to prove it! :)
Thank you for capturing some of our best (if not the best) moments of our lives! ❤️
Erica Mendenhall Photography and her team were amazing, professional and fun to work with. We are beyond pleased with the way our daughters engagement and wedding photos turned ou...
t. Memories of that special day that we will have forever.
One person who made both our engagement and wedding special, is none other than Erica herself, from Erica Mendenhall Photography. She made sure to take time to get to know us and ...
understand our vision for our images. She made us comfortable in front of a lens and let us truly enjoy our day. She was all for climbing sand dunes for our engagement pictures and was down to trek into the golf course to the exact hold Mark proposed on for our first look. She took time to photograph a first look with my father, too, which meant a lot to me. I love how she was organized and created a perfectly orchestrated timeline for our wedding. She made my OCD heart pitter patter!!! I couldn’t be more thankful for her talent and beautiful heart. Stalking her Instagram page was the best decision I ever made!!! I’m forever indebted to Mrs. Erica, my forever friend.
Amazing photographer, she makes every little effort to make it possible. Her husband and her knows exactly where to take the best pictures, they’re the perfect team, and to top it...
off they have a great sense of humor. Every person that looks at our engagement pictures have nothing but amazing comments. Couldn’t be any happier with our pictures, best photographers around my area!
Erica is absolutely amazing! She truly takes the time to get to know you and it comes through in the work she does. She makes you feel comfortable the entire time taking photos. Th...
e final work is stunning. You will be so happy with the end product!
MADDOX
Erica Mendenhall, is by far one of the best photographers I know. Not only are her and her husband great at what they do, but they also build a relationship with their customers an...
d genuinely care about them. My experience with them was nothing but great! She exceeded my expectations by far, and I was completely in love with our photographs. She made sure she captured every moment and went above and beyond to capture some amazing pictures. She will definitely continue to be our go-to photographer in future occasions. She delivered my dream pictures and knew exactly what I wanted. We are so greatful!
We recently got married in September 2017 and I made sure to book Erica in a year in advance because I knew she needed to be my photographer since before I was engaged. She’s a gre...
at person and nonetheless a fantastic photographer! She made sure to help and give me ideas every time I asked or saw her. If you want photos that will be romantic and breathtaking she is the one. Make sure you book her as soon as possible. Very professional and responsive!
I found Erica on wedding wire and she is AMAZING! I couldn’t have picked a better photographer, she was so easy to talk to and so knowledgeable about everything.. She was super re...
sponsive and so so helpful! The first time we talked over the phone I knew I had to have her capture our wedding day and I was so fortunate she was available for our wedding! She was such a huge help the entire day and our pictures turned out amazing. We couldn’t be happier! Thank you so much, Erica!!!
I found Erica online because I was looking for a photographer local to Palm Springs, where we chose to get married, on very short notice. After leaving a message, I heard back fro...
m her right away and we ended up talking on the phone for almost an hour! It felt like I was making a plan with a friend who knew all the right questions to ask to get me organized and thinking creatively about images I wanted for my special day. She was very easy to communicate with, organized and extremely considerate of my desires, timeline and needs. Not only are her prices very reasonable, she also provided all the photos in web and hi-res files with a quick turnover. She was also very flexible during the shoot and our photos turned out great! I am thrilled to have chosen her and fortunate she was available on my special day. I would highly recommend hiring her to anyone getting married. The day will come and go and what’s left are the photos to remind us of the special moments of that day.
Erica is WONDERFUL!!! She is great to work with, she is always in contact with us, which is something we really liked about her since the beginning. She is very professional but sh...
e knows how to make us laugh. I was so nervous going into our engagement session, I had never done professional pictures and I am very self conscious about pictures. Yet Erica and her husband made the experience so calm and fun. We had a blast working with her and she really understood us and captured our awkward side, which we loved. I can't wait to work with her at our wedding and can't wait to see more of her wonderful work.
Erica photographed our wedding in September 2016 in Palm Springs. She is a lovely professional who captured the essence of our day. We're so pleased with her photography. Erica ...
was kind, courteous, funny, and even offered suggestions regarding wedding day details that we would have overlooked. She went above and beyond to make our day special. I am so grateful Erica Mendenhall was able to photograph our wedding day!
My story started when my boyfriend told me we were going on a hike out in the desert ( something we do often) I was super excited because he never plans anything and I was like yes...
, lets go! After about 5 dirt roads, 10 wrong turns and me wondering if we were even going to make it out of the Anza Borrego Desert alive we found ourselves at a beautiful trail that he was just so adamant on taking me on. When we arrived, to my surprise there was another car there, I thought, like us they were just a few other crazy hikers willing to take the trip to see the beautiful views. We hiked up to the peak of Fonts Point and stood looking out over the magnificent landscape, 5 seconds later I turned around and to my surprise he was on his knee with a beautiful diamond ring in his hand, I think I blacked out from the excitement and didn't come back to life until he told me to wave to the photographers. As I finally caught my breath and looked up I saw Erica and her husband snapping photos, I asked my boyfriend "Are they taking pictures of us? I thought they were just hiking" and sure enough they drove all the way out to the desert to capture this moment for us. Even though I was wearing no makeup , had hiking boots on and hadn't washed my hair in longer than I would like to admit, Erica made me and my fiancé look absolutely gorgeous and captured our love and the serene beauty of the desert. This was a day I will surely remember for the rest of my life and I am thankful that I will never forget a second of it because I have all of the amazing photos Erica captured for us. Thank you Erica! You are fantastic!
Erica has been wonderful from start to finish. I called her only 2 weeks before the wedding, and luckily she was available. She appeared on the big day and took the most delightful...
photos. She has been responsive and easy to work with, and has gone above and beyond. Highly recommended!!
Erica was fantastic! We recommend her fully!
First of all, her photos came out beautiful; each and every one of them. They successfully highlight the joys of our day.
Second of...
all, she went beyond just taking photos, and helped us with location recommendations for our engagement photos and helpful flexibility with our timelines. The location we ended up choosing from her list of suggestions for the engagement photos was wonderful. Because I planned my engagement party so close to the photo shoot, she rush ordered one of those great engagement photos as a beautiful print for the party; it was perfect! The wedding timeline help she provided was such a surprise and a blessing! A week before the big day some changes were made and we asked her to come in hours earlier. She was flexible and even helped to streamline the entire timeline! The day of, she was there to strategize when groomsmen were late and the hairdresser took an hour longer than expected. It took a lot of the worry off our shoulders.
Third of all, the day of our wedding went so smoothly with photos. We had provided her a list of the many, many family portraits to be taken that day (both of us have large families), and she made it all work! She wasn't afraid to take charge, place people, and rearrange them so that each photo was great, even despite all the wind. She kept the mood fun but got the job done. We wanted to enjoy our wedding day and not just have it all be about pictures; working with Erica meant that we were having fun the whole time, while still capturing moments we'll have in photographs forever.
An added plus: we received our photos so soon! We had friends who had to wait six months or more to get their wedding photos, but not us! And we were blown away by the quality! She used the PASS website, which allowed us to share the photos easily, download them, and choose photos to be printed (included in our awesome package from her).
We can't emphasize our satisfaction enough. We loved working with her and recommend her for any photography needs you may have.
Erica is so lovely to work with and was very helpful from our first meeting all the way to the wedding! We are so happy we chose Erica as our photographer because she made great r...
ecommendations such as taking "first look" photos because she was worried we wouldn't have enough bride and groom photos given our timeline we sent her.
She was fast on uploading our images (there were a ton!!!!!) and we loved every photo she took. Erica and her assistant took the time and made sure they captured the "Kodak" moments and can definitely re-live our special day when seeing her shots.
Highly recommend Erica and would hire her in an instant for another party or event!
I’m usually not one for words or writing, hence why it’s taken me this long to finally submit this review just about a month after our wedding. I feel like I’ve re-written and edit...
ed like a million times and I still feel as if it won’t do her justice… but finally ill just submit.. (So sorry Erica)
Erica Mendenhall is so easy to work with and she knows exactly what to capture and when to capture it. As a person, uncomfortable in front of the camera (not very photogenic and struggling with losing weight for my big day) I was worried about “certain poses” and hiding my body but looking at our pictures she captured the best angles and made me feel gorgeous, or so I thought but it’s really not that; she made us feel comfortable and relaxed and that’s what was the key ingredient.
I’ll add that, although I was not the easiest bride to work with, she somehow did it! Everything I wanted or rather expected her to do without having to tell her. For most photographers I imagine that’s hard since they can’t read minds but somehow she captured every image and moment in time that I wanted. Once all the beautiful chaos was over and I had time to soak it all in I prayed she had captured pictures of this and that, etc…(you know how that goes). Upon receiving my gallery I practically burst out into tears (joyful tears of course) she had done it and they were AMAZING!!
With one of the biggest days of our lives and such a huge action packed event, you didn’t miss a beat and I am forever grateful!
P.s.
For the Brides that are crazy and expect people to read your minds, she’s your girl. And for those brides that are organized and have communication skills, I’ll probably be seeing your pictures on the cover of a magazine! No doubt those pictures will be even more amazing!
What can we say..? Erica was AMAZING! With as stressful as weddings can be, it was definitely a relief to have someone as helpful, knowledgeable, and kind as Erica along the way wi...
th us. She made us feel so comfortable and was always in constant contact throughout the way. It really does make a difference having that kind of person working with you. Not only did we love working with Erica every minute we were with her, but she captured our wedding so perfectly. She captured all the emotions and our pictures came out incredible! Erica is so professional and friendly. We couldn't have asked for a better photographer. We highly suggest Erica for any photography needs!
Our experience with Erica, from the start, was amazing. We used Erica to shoot our engagement photos, we were nervous since we were making the move from Michigan to California and ...
we weren't really sure what to expect. We started our hunt for someone to shoot our photos and soon came across Erica. I sent her and email and within a day or so she gave me a call, and from there it was pretty much a wrap. Erica worked with us to set up the best day and time possible, as we concerned about taking our pictures in the heat. We also had a time constraint, since we needed to get save the dates out. She called a few weeks before the shoot to go over poses and locations. She gave great advice to our questions and looked over everything we had sent her. The day of the shoot went so smoothly, she gave great direction, and recalled poses that we wanted, we couldn't have asked for a better day. In order to get out save the dates out in time she had pictures edited and ready to go within the time frame that we asked for. She also did addition retouches when we asked. I'm so pleased with our experience and if we weren't doing an out of state wedding, (and already had out photographer) Erica would have been our first choice. You won't regret booking with her!!
We had a very small wedding (only 15 people) at La Quinta Resort, but even so I researched and chose vendors as carefully as if it had been for 200. I was overjoyed to have found E...
rica. She was not only willing to work within our budget, but went above and beyond to make sure we had exquisite memories of our day. She worked tirelessly and with great care and attention to detail from the moment she arrived till the moment she left (which was well beyond the time allotted in our contract). Besides being an extremely talented photographer, she is very professional (responding to emails or phone calls very quickly). And -- most importantly on one's wedding day -- she is just so very NICE! A joy to work with and she was able to put both me and my fiancé at ease when we were both a bundle of nerves. Thank you, Erica! You are the best.
Contact
PO Box 185, Rancho Mirage, CA | Southern California and beyond
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