Wedding

Jerleen & James – San Diego Engagement & Courthouse Photography

Look who is finally blogging sessions for the year of 2019! I wanted to start off my 2019 work with this adorable couple and their engagement session. So here’s the quick backstory: Jerleen found me through a good friend who just also happened to be an intern working with my husband years ago. We would occasionally run into said friend and former intern at our local wine bar here in North Park. All I gotta say is I am so thankful for the awesome referral! The first time I met Jerleen I felt as though I was meeting one half of myself. We goofed around, laughed, discussed photography and wedding plans and had just a few glasses of wine together. The added bonus is that she literally lives around the corner from us so I often get to see her around the neighborhood walking her dog. Meeting with her was an instant match for me but ultimately the decision of booking was up to her and James. So yes, I was over the moon when she told me she wanted to book. The official wedding celebration with friends and family is coming up in June. What you are about to see is this perfect little courthouse ceremony followed by their engagement session. I can not say enough good things about these two as a couple and as subjects for me to shoot. The rain the first half of this year in San Diego had been heavy and we actually rescheduled this session a few times. It got to the point that we just knew we couldn’t dodge the rain so the date was booked. My wonderful friend and neighbor Yukimi agreed to come along with me as my assistant in case I needed her to hold an umbrella over me to shoot in the rain. She also surprised them with a gorgeous handmade boutonniere and bouquet made entirely of succulents from her own backyard. James also surprised Jerleen with a handmade bouquet of his own which is just about the sweetest thing ever. I am sure it’s no surprise to anyone that reads this blog that I was a ball of nerves before this shoot. I wanted it to be spectacular and I also wanted to not get myself and all my equipment soaking wet in the event of a torrential downpour. We’ve had quite a few of them in…

I am still playing catch up on all my 2018 holiday sessions. I would blame procrastination or even the fact that I don’t love to blog and maybe that is a little bit of why I’m still not caught up but bigger than that is my day to day caring for my dad. I have some free time this morning so I figured I better buckle down and do it! This was a really fun session for me to photograph. Corey found me on Instagram and told me how much she loved my feed. I don’t hear that often as I’m not the most savvy with social media. She also informed me that she loved reading my blog so hopefully she will see this one! Corey and Matt were newly engaged at the time and wanted to have their first photo session together since their engagement so technically this could be used as their official engagement session or maybe it’s just a session to break them in when they decide to pull the trigger on another session. I hope they call me if they do another one! Corey and Matt are such a fun loving couple. I loved how much they were into each other and into the photos themselves. I shoot a ton of families these days and working with a couple is always fun and I try to keep my ideas for posing fresh. It’s always a fun challenge for me to stay sharp and photograph a couple. The beautiful sunset was a bonus of course and I used it to my advantage. I threw my hat in the ring to photograph their wedding even though they are getting married outside of San Diego. So hey guys, for reals, lemme shoot that wedding! You are amazing and it would be a dream to work with you again but even if you don’t hire me I will always love you and would be happy to work with you again anytime here in San Diego.

This is a unique post to share for a few reasons. The first is because Kim and Mike participated in a Vietnamese tea ceremony as part of their wedding weekend festivities. The second because Kim and Mike were not technically my bride and groom. They came to me through a friend and photographer Lisa Fitts. The short version is that this couple had booked Lisa to shoot their wedding but since the tea ceremony was happening a day before the wedding, they would need that photographed as well. The problem was that Lisa wasn’t available the day before and so she referred them to me because I was also the second shooter for Lisa on the wedding day. Lisa figured it would be a good fit and I think she was right. As a second, I generally never know anything about a couple until I show up on the wedding day. This was a really fun way for me to meet Kim and Mike as well as get an insider’s feel into friends and family. Funny enough this wasn’t my first tea ceremony to document this year. Every now and then I will shoot some video with my videographer friend Patrick of Carry On Studios and just about a month before this ceremony, I shot another one. It was a good learning experience for me and prepared me quite nicely for what can only be described as formal but casual. I liked that Kim and Mike had rented a big house in La Jolla for their tea ceremony. It was nice to have lots of extra space to move around and shoot in and still be able to navigate respectfully between friends and family members in attendance. The light was awesome in the front entry way where the ceremony was held and made for some striking moments. But you be the judge and tell me what you think!

We’re heading back to April to post some photos from Tara and James’ wedding at Morgan Run. These two were a quiet and shy couple when it came to photographs but I hardly noticed because they took all my direction so well. This was also the first wedding that I shot with Miranda as my second shooter. Her passion and love of photography shows and she’s moving up in the ranks rather quickly. She just gets me. She’s a hustler and an eternal goofball so you can only imagine the amount of fun I have with her. We got to take the golf carts out for some sunset photos with this couple. It is quite possibly my favorite part of the day. I mean just look at the light! But I also loved it because I got to ride around with Miranda laughing, shooting and just generally having fun. I now know how to properly use the brake on a golf cart because of her and she now knows how to shoot from the passenger side of the cart while I go careening through the grass.

For the time being my blog is all out of order so I’m taking you back to February of this year to Monica and Hernan’s Fallbrook wedding. I’ve been very fortunate this year to work with some really wonderful couples. I don’t take as many weddings as I used to these days because after nearly twenty years, a full day of shooting takes it’s toll physically. But here’s the thing, when I meet a couple like Monica and Hernan, I gotta go with it. I know eventually I will sound like a broken record but it means so much to me to work with couples that trust me and allow me to do my job in the way I enjoy it the most. I still get sick to my stomach before every wedding and I was especially keyed up before this one because February is an “off” month for portraits and weddings. I can only describe it as an out of body experience when I pick up my camera again after having a few weeks off. I have to push back all the thoughts of self doubt and tell myself just do one thing at a time. It’s weird how when I get a break from doing the thing I love most that all the fear kicks in but I guess that also means I really love my job and I want to do it well. So here I was freaking out on the inside and smiling on the outside. I think I pulled it off! But of course, Monica and Hernan were cool customers and made it all so easy for me. Plus I love working at a venue where I can just park my car, shoot prep, ceremony and reception without having to change location. It just means more shooting and more photos! Since I can’t seem to think of what else to tell you about this wedding other than it was awesome, I’ll just share the photos with you.

In an effort to continue blogging and to also catch everyone up on the weddings I have shot this year, I would like to take you back to just after we arrived back home from our big trip through Spain and Santorini. I gave myself ten days to recover so I could wrap my head around photographing Matt and Kristen’s Paradise Falls wedding in Oceanside. This was another couple who I felt really understood who I am as a person and a photographer and they knew exactly how to take care of their vendors. It’s always those little moments throughout the day that reassure me I am right where I need to be and we had plenty of them back in May for this wedding. Matt and Kristen had one request and that was to have fun and keep the photos short and sweet. They wanted a ton of photos with their wedding party and then all they wanted to do was dance. And believe me, they danced! I love when couples tell me what they want because it makes my job easier. Over time my goal and vision for weddings has changed as I have learned and grown in this industry so now I tell my couples, if you don’t want the photos of this, that or the other, I don’t want to spend time taking them. Basically, if a bride tells me she’s not into prep photos, I don’t want to spend time in the day taking photos of something that the bride doesn’t even want me doing. My job is to keep my couples happy so if that means lots of wedding party pics and get straight to the dancing then that’s what I’ll do. Also I love dancing so this was a couple after my own heart. Let’s dive into the photos. Tell me what you think. I would love to hear from you!

Let’s take this blog post back to earlier this year in May when I went to Santorini to photograph the gorgeous wedding of Derek and Shiloh. Before landing in Greece, we ate our way through Spain for the first ten days of this adventure. I stressed myself into oblivion about traveling with so much gear just so I could shoot this wedding. I paired everything down to just the essentials and somehow my backpack still weighed a ton but I used every piece of equipment I had brought so it was well worth it. And speaking of well worth it, check out the sunset we scored the night of the wedding! It was incredible! We were escorted to the rooftop balcony of the Le Ciel and as the clouds rolled in, it created the most spectacular colors I have ever witnessed. I’m so glad I made the decision to not waste another second of the sunset because the fog came in so quick that it got dark pretty fast. It was the highlight of the evening for me. Derek and Shiloh were so accommodating to both myself and my videographer friend Patrick of Carry On Studios. They went to great lengths to insure that we were comfortable and well fed just so we could do our job. Take note future brides and grooms, thoughtfulness for your wedding vendors is most appreciated when you spend long days on your feet carrying heavy equipment and sweating your butt off. These two knew what was up and didn’t miss a beat. This wedding might be as close to a dream come true for me. It was a dream I didn’t dare to have because how on earth would it ever come true?!! Somehow this one did come true and now I have the gorgeous memory of one of the most delightful places on earth. I encourage you all to start dreaming of Santorini.