It always amazes me that no matter how many times I walk into City Hall with new clients, it always looks and feels entirely different. Each couple seems to make it their own, and around each corner I find new shadows and angles and beauty. Walking in next to L & R, I couldn’t imagine them getting married anywhere else. The impact their effortless elegance had on me was matched only by the tears that welled up in everyone’s eyes throughout the ceremony. What a perfect, exciting but calm afternoon; what happy, beautiful love.

Oh, how lucky I am to spend so much time celebrating love, how rich this makes life, how special it is to be a part of moments of bliss.

E & T’s wedding was a day of “pinch me, I must be dreaming”. It was as though someone had hand selected beautiful things and awesome people and the tastiest food to photograph and put them in one day for us.

Filled with character and color and love for each other, and smiles that made my heart melt over and over, E & T were a dream to work with. As I learned on their wedding day, their friends and families are just as tastefully gorgeous and lovely.

A feast for the eyes, for the heart, and for the soul, E & T, congratulations!

I ended 2010 on a high after amazing adventures, art shows and creative outlets abound. I was excited for 2011, but I also couldn’t escape the pressure of passion to shoot weddings. I was entering my fifth year of trying to get my business off the ground. I had come to terms with the reality that running a wedding photography business and finding work isn’t easy stuff. It’s, well, really hard.

As December closed, I finally met Emily Gutman of Emily Takes Photos who wanted to meet up for coffee in the New Year. Was she being sarcastic? I had sadly mis-perceived that two wedding photographers in the same city with a similar style couldn’t openly admire each other’s art, never mind be…friends!?

Fortunately, the second I saw her face, I melted. She was adorable and lovable and gorgeous, incredibly warm and welcoming. On our first date, she handed me a little box of knowledge that changed my photography life forever. Why was I wasting my time being buried in website listings? Hadn’t I ever gotten involved with wedding blogs? A cup of tea, a scribble of blog names on a napkin, and the rest is happiness history. I not only started finding emails in my inbox, but they were from people like me. They weren’t questionably spam or unreasonable bargain shoppers. They were people I’d pick as my friends in real life, people who I couldn’t wait to spend time with and photograph.

So this post is a thank you to both Emily for her support as a friend and her knowledge of being a woman small business owner and a fabulous photographer, and to every couple below who enriched the year with so much love and character and creativity, with friendship and laughter and constant admiration. So much more than clients, you have each in your own way found a place in my heart and have treated me to the most amazing year in photos.

I started the year at the most intensely unreal dance party wedding in Argentina, feeling royal with C & J

Followed by the most quaint Berkeley wedding filled with homemade Southern Charm with C & S

Cried along during speeches at the Terra Gallery while time stopped for E & E

Was witness and partner in colorful elopement excitement with V & J

Warmed my heart around the fire on a ranch with J & G

Was mesmerized by the beauty and inclusiveness of family under the redwoods with M & B

Shared in anticipation and sheer joy at City Hall with T & J

Beheld the incredible love of two beautiful women on a foggy cliff at the union of J & A

Danced and laughed with young and old alike in Marin with M & S

Wished the beautiful summer night would have lasted forever with L & A

Felt consumed by the union of art and love at the San Francisco Art Institute with C & S

Crossed an ocean to be a part of two ceremonies and a huge celebration in Italy with F & C

Was captivated by romance in the forest air with J & A

and closed the year at the Boston Museum of Science while playing under dinosaurs with E & A

In addition to the honor of photographing the union of new friends, it was also an amazing year filled with travel and adventure, color and contrast. At no point did I lose sight at how lucky I am to have a day job that challenges me to constantly learn and grow, and a life outside of the office that always keeps me smiling.

It was the first year my photography was published, both in Harper’s Bazaar and on A Practical Wedding. I photographed beautiful children and families like M and M and E, P, the L’s and the W’s…

…and was trusted by my favorite muses to get a little crazy in costume, dress up in tulle, get cozy with taxidermy, and spend afternoons in nameless bars.

I travelled to New Orleans with those amazing muses and played in the snow with Q in New York, got lost on the streets of Venice , went to Frenchy chic picnics, and visited friends in Berlin …

I played Parent to my little brother in Oregon , conquered Brooklyn and Manhattan with ladies who I love, spent a long weekend at Jenna’s childhood home in Alaska, split my 29th Birthday between Point Reyes and dressing up with friends in Capes and Crowns…

I was lucky enough to spend time in Iguazu Falls Argentina, hung art in a local store, spent some time in the beauty of Sonoma and Northern California, and had a taste of summer at home in Australia.

To be fortunate enough to fill my life with travel and good friends, photography and being creative, daily inspiration and (two) career(s) that keep me motivated is so much more than I could ever ask for from life.

2011 was a pretty incredible year.

E & A’s first email to me was one of those jump up and down “really, I can go to Boston with you to photograph your wedding” emails, made even more exciting by “wait, it’s at the Museum of SCIENCE!!?!?” Once I met them in person, I couldn’t think of a more suitable venue to celebrate their love.

Their wedding was no different. I jumped up and down throughout the hallways of the huge and deserted museum while E & A wandered through exhibitions and confronted dinosaurs and grasshoppers.

I was also lucky enough to have the company of the amazing Boston photographer Emily Sterne who helped document the night of eating and drinking and dancing and merriment. And if getting to shoot a Museum wedding in Boston wasn’t enough, the company of E & A and their awesome friends and family made it the best way to close an incredible year. Soon, a review on exactly how incredible it’s been.

Soundtrack: Talking Heads

Smell: Crisp clean forest air and wood burning fireplaces

Touch: Velvet and fur, tulle, fallen leaves

Taste: Wines and beers, cheeses and smoked salmon, comfort food to warm the soul…

Sight: see below

It’s been a while since I’ve had the pleasure of posting a wedding as the season comes to a close, but I’ve been waiting patiently for J & A and their wedding all year. It was worth the anticipation, made better only by partnership with a good friend from a different time in life, Chloe.

When J first contacted me, I knew that I had to photograph her and A’s wedding. If she hadn’t had me at, “candle lit dance hall”, the idea of staying with the party overnight in the woods in historic cabins without electricity was pretty convincing. Best of all, once we met in person, J’s calm but electric presence was enough to wrap my senses in the need to photograph her. The same was true for the first time I met A, who was as equally as warm and thoughtful and flowing with charm.

Their wedding felt like a movie set to me, or rather the animation of a fairy tale with all of the good parts, minus the villain. The South meets Ireland, guests who insisted on treating us as guests, costumes and candles and chandeliers, and most of all, romance. The swept-away-entranced-by-the-beauty-of-everything-in-the-story kind.

Included in the wonder was help and companionship from Chloe Jackman, a friend I’ve known since we studied Law & Society together ten years ago. When I moved to San Francisco I found her again, only to find that neither of us had become lawyers, but rather were both coincidentally wedding photographers. Chloe came to my rescue after my second-shooter flaked, blessing me in disguise. Not only is Chloe an amazing photographer, but she made the best date imaginable, leaving the weekend feeling more like a vacation with a friend than anything like work.

We talked about how amazing the wedding was from the moment we parked after our three hour journey until days after we drove home. At the end of the photos, see Chloe dragging a pile of our camping gear up a hill as well as the view of what it was like to wake up in the morning with candles and a burning fireplace and my cardigan which I mistakingly thought would make a great curtain.

Head in the clouds, clouds as high as they can be, I can’t stand not posting a few shots from the film I picked up from J & A’s Woodland Wonderland wedding this weekend. More when they’re back from their honeymoon next week. Bliss bliss bliss.

And then there were two. Two in the official F & C family, two sets of meaningful rings, two ceremonies to commemorate their union. Following a brief siesta, jumps in the villa pool, and dress change later, all of the guests gathered to witness F & C extra officially marry on the villa property while the sun set behind rolling hills (and seemingly enchanted woods) around us.

As the night wore on and the setting grew more and more dark, the guests seemed to illuminate our surroundings and the villa became more alive and beautiful.

At the end of a twenty hour day, I plopped myself onto a couch and talked the next few hours away, snapping photos as guests came into view, heaving great sighs of happiness mixed with exhaustion, anxious to see and now finally, post evidence of a most memorable evening. I get to see F & C often, which is good, because I imagine we’ll be reflecting on their amazing Tuscan wedding for a while.

I’ve been saving these photos for so long (ok, only a few weeks, but for me, this is an eternity)- that I’ve forgotten to write my thoughts. Maybe also because it would be impossible to sum up F & C’s wedding in a blog post.

Think fifty people traversing oceans and then countryside to reach a villa in the middle of Tuscany, of a civil ceremony in an ancient town hall followed by a stroll around the streets of Volterra …of the sun shining and the birds chirping, of the residents cheering and celebrating with us. Think of a lunch of meats and cheeses with family followed by a drive along the winding country roads with a gorgeous Italian man who fills us in on the area’s rich history.

Looking back, it all feels a bit surreal, wandering the streets of Italy with F & C, trying not to cry during the translated ceremony, taking in the wonder and craziness of watching friends get married in a historic, foreign place…

(part two to follow shortly, and then my personal thoughts and experience in a post later this week)

It’s pretty impossible to narrow down my favorites from F & C’s Tuscan wedding, and even harder to keep them all to myself until they return from their honeymoon. Reflecting on the many that I’ll eventually post, I thought of three (if I had to pick only three) that stood out the most for me: F being pampered before the second ceremony (half married at this point), the wandering in the woods which later produced some of the most awesome photos I could have imagined, and the out of focus hilarity that is F while C is his composed, organized calm self. Many many more to come, but in the meantime, here’s a snippet of F & C.

Being a San Francisco wedding photographer has many perks, but I’m pretty sure the best part is the kind of people I get to work with. C & S were not only APW, but they were instantly my kind of people. After a few emails of unsuspecting gushing our hearts out to each other, we set up time to meet in person- at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Not only was it an amazing first date of wandering the museum and having coffee on the roof, but I actually got to see merch made by C & S for sale in the museum. Umm, awesome.

We didn’t stop talking then, but rather spent greater part of the year writing and keeping in touch, exchanging stories and experiences. We had said it many times before, but there was no doubt that C & S felt more like friends than clients when I got to their amazing wedding at the San Francisco Institute of Art.

Under the Diego Rivera mural and then within the walls of a historic courtyard, C & S were married and celebrated (and *beat* a Diego & Frida pinata) with their closest friends. It was impossible to ignore the art both around and within us, and it was impossible to imagine a more suitable place for C & S to wed. Congratulations C & S, and thank you for your artful, colorful, gorgeous warmth.

(Oh, and ps, I don’t usually include family shots in my blog posts, but the photo of everyone looking at C below wasn’t staged- I actually laughed when I saw it because this is how goofy and wonderful they were. And for the record, that is Grandma wielding a bat in her fancy dress. Possibly one of the most memorable and awesome wedding moments of the year for me.)

Every once in a while, a movie is so good that it’s hard to leave the theater afterwards. You find yourself sitting and reflecting, listening to the music while the credits roll, just not ready to leave yet.

I left L & As wedding with the same feeling. I just wasn’t ready for it all to be over. I woke up thinking of them, almost missing them. L & As wedding, which started with their mingling from opposite sides of the room while getting closer and closer until finally embracing with L’s tears in her eyes and ended after a most delightful evening of dancing and laughing felt like a movie to me. A movie including outtakes- like when the DJ played a hip hop song instead of the correct song for the father-daughter dance, leaving L’s dad going with the flow and L cracking up for several minutes while the DJ figured it out. A movie including special features, like when L’s dad sang a song using his iphone to guide him through correct english.

Where toasts included many glasses of wine and kisses, uncles who insisted on going robo-style and where the children found secret pebbles in the winery gardens. I was constantly laughing, singing along, and melting every time L held my hand while she and A talked to me…loving every second of watching A, who I previously thought was shy, crawling to get a garter and laughing while dancing the conga.

I think I’ve left the theater by now, but the story still lingers and probably will for a while. Endless congratulations to L & A and their new life together.

Yay for wedding days that begin in a childhood home (and end happily exhausted on a dance floor). I had the pleasure of spending the whole day with M & S, starting at M’s family in the home she grew up in. Like the whole day, every little touch felt relevant and special.

I was a tad obsessed with the children (and grandparents!) from the moment I saw them at the ceremony. They (and the guests at large) looked like they had been hand picked from a perfection agency to come and dance and play and spread their amazing happiness. M & S managed to bring two massive families together and make everyone feel like an equally involved part of the day.

Once we got to the reception, I was able to fully appreciate M & S’s insistence on skipping solo photos entirely to be with the guests and join the party. I especially understood once the dance floor opened and a few hundred people danced the night away with electric love.

I had a smile on my face for a few hours the next morning while looking through the photos and seeing the expressions on everyone’s faces, the sway in their hips and the love in the air. It was once again, a reminder of why I love being a photographer, and why weddings are for me.

Congratulations M & S!

I wouldn’t want to frame it as falling behind, but keeping up during wedding season this year has proved excitingly challenging. Throw a road trip to Portland to move an 18yr old into college and the hosting of an everything-handmade bridal shower for a friend into the seven day turnaround, and blogging becomes almost impossible. So while I mentally and physically process the last two weeks of lovely faces and vistas, I leave you with a ‘hello’ and two photos from M & S’s Marin wedding.

My thoughts about A Practical Wedding are on A Practical Wedding today! Yes, I really love APW that much.

http://apracticalwedding.com/2011/08/little-bat-photography-in-the-san-francisco-bay-area/

Preparing for J & A’s cliffside ceremony, I felt like I was getting ready to go to my good friend’s wedding. As I recently said, J & A’s love and happiness is infectious, and their wedding was no different. Between Sonoma and the foggy coast, with the kind of friends (and family) you pick as your family, we sang and drank and watched the sun make its way through to greet a new Mrs & Mrs. It was too much fun from the second I arrived, and as I left, I made sure this wouldn’t be the last time I see them again.

California might not (yet) be New York, but love is really all you need.

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