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It’s a beautiful thing when you see one of your best and oldest friends marry their soul mate. It’s a complete honor to be the lucky one to photograph it all. Sweetening the deal even more is the fact that we made a trade; I photograph his wedding and he DJs my wedding. You’re engaged you ask? No, no plans to marry any time soon but I can not wait for Luke to DJ my wedding! Aside from being one of the Bay Area’s top DJs, Luke is a great friend, hilarious, creative, funky, and so much fun to be around. Michele is a bundle of beautiful, sweet, creative, amazingness herself and I am so crazy happy for the two of them. Their wedding was small, intimate, completely DIY, and filled with amazing DJs, so there was no shortage of good music. It took place at Wildwood Acres Resort in the canyons just outside of Oakland, California.
I’ve been the lucky beneficiary of many a DJ Platurn mix and now so are you! Click on the image below for a free download to the stellar mix that each of their guests received at their tables. FYI Luke is Icelandic and his real name is Illugi which is pronounced completely different than it looks. When he moved to California as a kid, he chose Luke (Skywalker, of course) to make things a little easier on himself and everyone else to get his name right.
Yes, Luke is very tall, and Michele’s aunt is very short!
A few shots of Michele’s awesome style and details.
On a beautiful summer day in New York, Nicole and Tom married their best friends. And I got to document it! With the help of the wonderful Kiersten Rowland of Prema Photographic.
Vanessa met Lempe while studying on a semester abroad in Senegal. After many late nights up drinking tea and Lempe fielding Vanessa’s endless questions, the two started dating. Their road wasn’t easy because she had to go back to the U.S. in a few months. It was 3 years before she made it back to Senegal and then only for 4 months. The next trip though, they married in Senegal! 3 years later they are back living in California together. When I got an email from Vanessa telling me that they were planning a California wedding and that she’d been hoping I’d photograph her wedding ever since I photographed her friend Caitlin’s wedding 2 years prior, I was so excited. Knowing that someone really connects with me and my work makes documenting their special time that much more precious. Plus I adored her when I met her.
The wedding was held at Vanessa’s family’s property in the gorgeous Redwood country of Garberville, California, an area with so much meaning to them. Her father spent the most part of the year lovingly preparing their land and garden for the festivities. They had to wait to lock in a date until her brother knew he would be able to get leave from the army. He also officiated their wedding. A toast given by Vanessa’s mom in the Pig Latin type language that Vanessa used to speak with her friends was a hilarious highlight.
Lempe’s father was the only family member that was able to make the long trip from Senegal. He is a police officer back home and speaks Senegalese and French. In the slideshow below there is a shot of Vanessa translating his speech for him, and Lempe’s reaction to follow. Since he is Muslim, Lempe’s father doesn’t drink alcohol. I love the shot of Scott (Caitlin’s husband) secretly handing Lempe a flask so he could sneak some wedding day booze without his father noticing.
One more great tidbit, their dress requirement was to add an element of flair!
Vanessa was so sweet to send me a great Zouk song to go with the slideshow and the love poem read at their ceremony which follows.
It’s best to let the slideshow load before watching it.
Love by Roy Croft
I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple.
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good.
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
Justin and Katy live just up the road from me in San Pancho and run an outstanding wedding design and coordination company called Playa Bliss Weddings. When they asked me to photograph their wedding I was truly honored. I love that they adore the area and chose to get married in the town church and have some mariachi dancing and hang out time in the plaza with the locals. I had to do a whole slideshow to tell this story.
Here is the slideshow of their day. It’s best to let it load before pressing play.
Rene and Yokaira brought some serious New York and Latin flavor with them for their Puerto Vallarta wedding. Their ceremony was at the Church of Guadalupe, Vallarta’s crowned icon, and their reception was held at Grand Velas in Nuevo Vallarta. To my delight, we had a little time to roam the streets around the church for some photos of the two of them before their grand entrance into the reception. I loved these two and their extended families and friends and feel honored to have been the one to document this wonderful time for them.
Monica and Jared’s wedding was held at the stunning villa Quinta Laura in the hills of Conchas Chinas. With a ceremony over-looking the Pacific Ocean, a classy, hacienda style dinner, and a night of dancing and fireworks under the palapa and the stars, the amazing design team The Dazzling Details worked their magic, transformed the space, and handled every little thing so Monica and Jared could soak it all in.
As a suprise for the couple, The Dazzling Details hired an artist to paint their wedding dinner. What a wonderful gift.
Congratulations Monica and Jared. It was such a pleasure to work with you!
This is an extra special post for me as these are two of my dearest friends. It’s a magical thing when two good friends get married and I always feel honored and lucky to document their love and this special time in their lives. Ben is an amazing documentary film maker and has always been very supportive of my photography, which made it extra fun to create images for them. Check one of his films out here.
Here are a few of my favorite images from their wedding and the session we did in Coney Island a few days later. Coney Island is one of my favorite places in New York -couple it with my favorite people and I’m a happy girl. I love you Ben and Katharine, wishing you a lifetime of great things together.
This image taken by my awesome associate photographer Kiersten Rowland.
This shot was Ben’s idea. He has two photos that I took in his bathroom of Questlove of The Roots washing his face. He wanted both of us in the picture with my photos on the wall.
I love this image Kiersten took of all of Ben’s guys sending him off.
Another great one by Kiersten of Ben seeing Katharine for the first time.
While I was taking a similar photograph, Kiersten snapped this masterpiece. I love it!
They had their wedding and reception at a photo studio called Sunwest Studios. First dance on the Cyc wall.
Brie and Mike held their wedding at the boutique resort El Tamarindo, along the Costalegre, 3 hours south of Puerto Vallarta. One of the nicest resorts I’ve seen yet, it has a wonderful balance between nature and luxury. Literally in the middle of nowhere, you might pass it if you blink! I really enjoyed photographing their lovely wedding and getting to know these lovebirds. Just look at those smiles. Congratulations Mike and Brie, you really know how to throw a wedding with style. I was also lucky enough to have my good friend and amazing photographer Mark Callanan along for the ride snapping shots as well.
Mark’s image:
Mark’s image:
I have a soft spot for female djs as I used to dj myself!
Mark’s image:
Yes, that is their guest with his tongue in the chocolate fountain. Hey, he was thirsty!
I feel lucky to do what I do, to have access and a window into the happiest days of people’s lives. It’s a pleasure and a special challenge to document weddings in a creative, original, and artistic way and create images that will serve as reminders and homages to this amazing moment of people’s lives for generations to come. I find each wedding to be special, exciting, romantic, and magical in their own way… it never gets old to me. After I moved to Mexico and met the design and coordination team The Dazzling Details, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The sheer effort and imagination that they put into every wedding boggled my mind. At every wedding I work on with The Dazzling Details, I find myself behind the scenes at some point saying, ‘You are crazy people! How do you do it??’ (This is my highest compliment of course). From the start, they made a decision not to do the same idea, altar, design, etc. twice. I really respected that stance and have come to look forward to seeing what they create. As if my job of photographing these magical moments couldn’t get any better, enter the Dazzling Details into the equation and I’m one happy photographer.
Here is a collection of images from weddings designed by this extraordinary team….
Suzanne and Joe’s wedding was originally scheduled for a few months later, but Suzanne got pregnant and we all scrambled to fit a new wedding date into our schedules, so they could get married before the little one arrived. I loved the style and look they decided to go with and had a wonderful time documenting Suzanne and Joe, their loving families, and all of the amazing details and fun of their wedding day. My former second shooter of two years Nathan Cordova was in town for another wedding so I lucked out and he came along with me.
