Hyatt Gainey Ranch Weddings: A Filmmaker's Guide to Grand Hyatt Scottsdale

If you are searching for Hyatt Gainey Ranch, you have found the right property under a new name. After a $115 million renovation it reopened as Grand Hyatt Scottsdale Resort, the first Grand Hyatt in Arizona. Most couples still search for it the old way, so this guide uses both names.

I filmed a wedding here and flew the property myself. What follows is what I noticed as someone whose job was to watch the day happen rather than plan it. Every photo below is my own.

What this property is actually good at

Plenty of Scottsdale resorts photograph beautifully. This one solves a specific problem: weddings where a lot of people travel in, and the celebration runs longer than a single afternoon.

With 496 guestrooms, 18 casitas and 90,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor function space, including a ballroom that holds well over a thousand, you can put your families on site and keep every event of the weekend in one place. Nobody drives between venues. Nobody misses the welcome dinner because they got lost.

That mattered for the wedding I filmed here. Kevin and Sheetal brought their families from across the United States and from India for a celebration that blended Christian and Hindu traditions, with both a priest and a pandit leading portions of the ceremony. The night before, there were toasts and large choreographed dances in brilliantly colored, jeweled dresses. The next day, the ceremony. Then a reception in a hall big enough to hold all of it. A venue that cannot absorb a multi day, multi tradition wedding forces the couple to compromise on something. This one did not.

The ceremony space from above

This is the ceremony lawn seen from directly overhead. Worth studying before you tour the property, because a site plan does not tell you what a photograph tells you: where the shade falls, how far the guest seating sits from the backdrop, and what is behind you when you turn to face each other.

The water is the thing on camera

Kevin and Sheetal were married in front of the property ponds and water features, and that is the detail I would give any couple looking here.

Water does two things for a wedding film that a lawn cannot. It doubles your light, because late sun coming off the surface fills faces from below in a way no reflector matches. And it gives the frame depth, so the wide shots have somewhere to go beyond the back row of chairs.

If you are choosing between ceremony locations here, ask about the water sites by name.

Planning notes

Ask about sunset on your date. Scottsdale sunsets are a reason people get married here, and the ceremony start that works in March does not work in October. Your photographer and videographer can tell you the exact time. Ask before the timeline is locked.

The scale cuts both ways. A ballroom that holds 1,400 is wonderful for a 300 person wedding and cavernous for a 60 person one. If your list is small, ask to see the smaller spaces and the outdoor lawns rather than defaulting to the largest room.

Build in travel time on the property. It is a big resort. Moving a bridal party from rooms to ceremony takes longer than anyone budgets for.

The details

• Grand Hyatt Scottsdale Resort, formerly Hyatt Regency Scottsdale at Gainey Ranch
• 7500 E. Doubletree Ranch Rd., Scottsdale, AZ 85258
• (480) 444-1234
• 496 guestrooms and 18 casitas, so out of town guests can stay on property
• 90,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor event space
• 27 hole golf course at Gainey Ranch Golf Club

See a wedding filmed here

Watch Kevin and Sheetal’s wedding film at Hyatt Gainey Ranch, filmed at the water features on this property.

If you are planning a wedding at Grand Hyatt Scottsdale and want it filmed by someone who has already worked the property, get in touch.