So, there's this Blue Cross Blue Shield commercial with a talking head explaining about his lost toof, and it's hilarious. I mean, it just cracks me up every. single. time. And this brings me to how I know Loni and Steph. You see, we played on a slow pitch softball team together (go Smoke!), and someone may have lost a front tooth. Anyhow, from meeting with Loni and Steph to photographing their wedding, every moment has been full of belly laughs. With so much laughter, we know these two are bound for a stupendous marriage!
Photo below by Adm:
Photo below on right by Adm:
Photo below by Adm:
Ariadne and Nicholas were married in Pasadena, CA, where I pretty much grew up. Actually, Ariadne and I went to high school together so it was really fun to photograph her wedding in my old stomping grounds. We hit a number of different spots throughout Pasadena including City Hall for some portraits, before ending up at her parents' house for one of the most beautiful summer backyard weddings that Adm and I have been to. She and Nicholas live in New Jersey, and so Ariadne's mom did almost all of the planning and coordinating, and she just did a fabulous job. There were so many sweet details, like the colorful shawls hanging over the backs of the chairs that not only added to the decor, but also served as favors for guests to take home and use as the night went on, or the signs that instructed guests how to play games which were set up in the front yard. Everything about the wedding felt very natural and comfortable, and we could tell that a lot of thought and care had gone into trying to make guests feel welcome and at home, which is exactly how I remember Ariadne from high school. She was always calm and collected, and genuinely expressed her care for other people and what was going on with them.
Who doesn't want to be first? Nobody! Especially in this household. Adm and I are super competitive people, and we both love to be first and love to win. Not that this is really a competition when it comes to the sequence of weddings, but Eva and Palani are our FIRST wedding of 2011. Three cheers for them! Three cheers also for their families who flew halfway around the world to help celebrate their marriage: Palani's family came from India and Eva's mother came from Hong Kong.
As a true Southern California girl, rain kinda bums me out. Truth be told, I was a little nervous when I realized that all of Kate and Margee's elopement and engagement session was going to be photographed indoors because it was raining outside. Lucky for me, we started with them at San Francisco City Hall where Margee and Kate signed their domestic partnership papers, and the cloud cover that initially bummed me out actually turned City Hall's giant upstairs windows into huge soft boxes. And, here's a little photo lighting tip: if you want a quick and easy way to make your subjects look beautiful, use giant soft boxes to create soft, natural looking light. They had a lovely ceremony with just the two of them before heading to the county clerk office to make things official, and we just loved photographing them in such beautiful light in such an amazingly gorgeous space. Because San Francisco City Hall is so beautiful, photographing there can be frustrating because it can get pretty crowded with all of the couples getting married and taking photos. I've never liked fighting for space, but Margee and Kate were just so involved with one another that it made it seem as if all the other people just disappeared. Their smiles, laughter and love were so incredibly infectious that we all just created our own little world.
