A quick preview of the wedding I shot this past weekend at the London West Hollywood. Isn’t the bride just gorgeous?

Full post coming soon!

You know all those horror stories you hear about the high school experience? Malicious gossip, thuggish bullies, backstabbing frenemies etc etc. Well I must have been one of the lucky ones because the enduring memories I have of my High School experience is that of the wonderful friends I made. Wonderful ladies whose friendship I was lucky enough to earn and who have since become like sisters to me.

And one of those friends, turns 23 today!

I usually can’t remember the beginning of the friendships I’ve made over the years. Can’t remember the precise moment we met and started developing that relationship. But with Val, I remember and I remember it CLEARLY. Probably because there I was, a scared little freshmen when all of a sudden this strange and excited girl jumps right in front of me and exclaims something along the lines of, “I KNOW YOU!!” And proceeds to talk about how I was Hannah, the Asian cheerleader from Orange Grove Middle School. Oh yeah, she freaked me out at first.

But Val has this magic quality about her that oozes warmth and friendliness. She may be super hyper at times, but she makes you feel at home. There are times when we go out and meet new people and I’m so glad to have Val by my side because I swear, the girl can make friends and carry a conversation with perfect strangers with perfect ease.

Last week while I was in LA, we treated Val out to an early birthday dinner and while on the way home I mentioned how much I love her chocolate chip-less chocolate chip cookies and what does she do? She proceeds to go home, grab all her baking equipment and ingredients, brings it all over to my house and bakes me the most delicious cookies right then and there. That’s the kind of wonderfully giving person she is and I love her for it.

This isn’t a recent photo, but I love it anyway because I think it perfectly captures Val’s open and warm personality.

Happy Birthday Val! Let’s keep on growing old together.

Last Thursday as I was doing the drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles for the billionth time (quick tidbit, I’ve driven up and down, to and from LA and SF so many times that I’ve racked up enough miles to have circled the circumference of the world!) I took a detour to spend a few hours shooting with Susie Linquist at a lovely wedding at Nestldown, a stunningly gorgeous and fairytale-esque private residence tucked away in the redwood filled mountains of Los Gatos.

How cute are these kids?

I love the steps leading down to the ceremony site. A great way to make an entrance.

Ceremony:
Nestldown
Los Gatos, CA 95033
(408) 353-5311
www.nestldown.com

Over Labor Day Weekend, I got to shoot my first San Francisco wedding at the lovely Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate Park with another Los Angeles native, Henry Chen of Henry Chen Photography.

I really love small intimate garden weddings. And the Shakespeare Garden had an English charm about it.

The bride getting ready:

The ceremony site, with lots of lovely little details. The bride and her bridesmaids had a moss party and made those moss ball decorations by hand!

Bubbles! Tossing flower petals is nice, but bubbles are whimsical and beautiful. A great way to top off a ceremony.

We went to the Japanese Tea Garden, another beautiful location within the Golden Gate Park to do some bride and groom portraits.

And then headed on to gorgeous Tiburon for a intimate reception dinner.

Kenneth and Lulu were so thoughtful of their guests with individualized jars to act as drinking cups for the night, pots of rosemary, basil and other herbs to take home as favors, and a candy bar!

They also had a talented silhouette artist come in and make silhouette cut outs for all the guests. How neat is that?

Ceremony:
Shakespeare Garden
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA 94121
(415) 831-2700

Reception:
Landmarks Arts and Garden Center
841 Tiburon Blvd.
Tiburon, CA 94920