Plasma based electron accelerators offer a promising path to overcoming the significant technological and economic challenges facing the evolution to higher energies by radiofrequency (RF) accelerator technology. In particular, laser-driven wakefield acceleration (LWFA) in plasmas can produce accelerating gradients 1000 times larger than linear RF accelerators, enabling the production of GeV-scale electron bunches in just a few centimeters of acceleration. Efficient LWFA of electrons to this energy scale requires the use of optical guiding to maintain drive laser intensity over much longer distances than the characteristic diffraction length of the pulse. In this dissertation, I will present the first successful implementations of optically generated plasma waveguides in multi-GeV laser wakefield acceleration. I will focus on three primary topics: (1) experimental considerations for generating and diagnosing meter-scale plasma waveguides and the wakefield acceleration process, (2) the experimental demonstration of electron bunches accelerated up to 5 GeV in an all-optical LWFA, and (3) development of a model of drive pulse evolution and electron injection in agreement with a broad range of our experimental results, including the demonstration of localized electron injection through modification of the waveguide properties.