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A long overdue post from Haruka & Felix’s gorgeous wedding at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Gardens!  I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing this sweet couple when they first married in a private beach ceremony in Malibu.
Several months later they followed up that intimate affair with a ceremony & reception for family and friends at the LA Arboretum.

It was such a beautiful and well-styled day, with the guys starting the day off with a good old-fashioned barber shop shave at 18/8 in Pasadena and the girls looking pretty in pink!  Their ceremony took place at the arboretum’s Rose Garden, and the blooming pink trees at the Peacock Cafe provided the perfect canopy for their candlelit outdoor reception!

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Wedding Venue: Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanical Garden

Floral Design: Creative Floral Designs

Wedding Day Coordination: Kat Keane Weddings & Events

Wedding Cinematography: studio205films

Catering: The Peacock Café at the Arboretum

Alcohol: The Bottle Shop

Wedding Cake: Cake Sensations

Dessert Bar: Dots Cupcakes, ‘Lette Macarons, Beard Papa’s, JJ Bakery, Phoenix Food Boutique

Wedding Invitations + Stationery: Angela Dal Bon Custom Invitations & Announcements

Ceremony + Cocktail Hour Musicians: Strings by Reiko

DJ: High Resolution Productions

Rentals: Dolphin Party Rentals

Wedding Dress: La Soie Bridal

Bride’s Shoes: Kate Spade

Hair + Makeup: Vivihair and Makeup

Bridesmaids’ Dresses: David’s Bridal

Groom’s Suit: J. Crew

Groomsmen’s Suits: Alfani via Macy’s

Groom + Groomsmen’s Shaves: 18|8 Men’s Hair & Grooming Center

Assistant Photographer:  Jean Tsai

Sofia’s parents are two talented chefs who DIY’ed this “Berry Sweet” themed 1st Birthday for their daughter!  They handmade everything from the homemade strawberry jam favors, to the delicious array of food, to the super cute cakes!  Yes, that’s cakes plural because not only was there an amazing two-tiered display cake with cute little handmade strawberries on it, there was also an adorable sprinkles smash cake!  And doesn’t all the food just look soooo yummy?!

It was all such a beautiful labor of love and I’m so glad they asked me to help capture it!

Also, a big thank you to On to Baby for featuring Sofia’s 1st Birthday Party on their blog last week!

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Babies are just so cuddly and adorable!  I’m always amazed at their tiny fingers and toes, their cute little noses, and their squishy thighs!  Loving this set of close-ups of Baby Z.  His mom wanted to be sure we captured his little dimple and the way he grabs his feet with his hands. <3

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Sofie’s detail-filled “Berry Sweet” 1st birthday party is featured on On to Baby today!  Head on over to see all the sweet details!

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Here’s part 2 of the Lost in Lavender group shoot.  Love the soft pretty tones of film!  Thank you to all our wonderful models, and to Nina, Kurt, Ning, and Jon for organizing all of it!

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MODELS

Amy Cu

Corrie Grier – https://www.facebook.com/CorrieGrier (619) 917-5426

Brian Bolton – http://jonescrow.com/#/

Dee Rubio

Greg Hasty

Lizzie Metcalf – http://swonderfulphotos.com/#/special/splash/home/

 

VENDORS

Flowers: Jennie Ho-Pham

Bridal Headpieces: Lacielle Roselle – http://www.lacielleroselle.com/    http://www.facebook.com/lacielleroselle

Wedding Gowns: Ruche – http://shopruche.com/

Hair & Makeup: Joyce Luck – http://www.joyceluckstyle.com/

Set Design: Jon and Amy Cu – http://joncuphotography.com/

A little while back I attended a group styled shoot out at the gorgeous Highland Springs Resort.  It was a great time of meeting and learning from other photographers!  It was also a nice opportunity to play around with a medium format film camera I had recently added to my camera collection.  There’s something about the process of shooting film that I really appreciate.  I think it’s a good practice for me to every once in a while slow it down a bit and really think about everything I’m doing before I click the shutter.

Here are a few photos from the shoot.  I really love how the images turned out!  I have a few more images I want to share but I’ll save those for a later post. =)

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For those photographers that might be interested, these were shot on a Contax 645 with Fuji 400H film, and processed & scanned by Richard Photo Lab.

 

MODELS

Jerilee Woodford

Mark DiNitto – http://markydinitto.blogspot.com/

 

VENDORS

Flowers: Jennie Ho-Pham

Bridal Headpieces: Lacielle Roselle – http://www.lacielleroselle.com/    http://www.facebook.com/lacielleroselle

Wedding Gowns: Ruche – http://shopruche.com/

Hair & Makeup: Joyce Luck – http://www.joyceluckstyle.com/

Set Design: Jon and Amy Cu – http://joncuphotography.com/

I hope everyone has been having a great 2014 so far!  I thought I’d share with you guys this mini desktop calendar I designed. Every year my roommates from college have a Secret Santa gift exchange.  We’ve been doing this for over 10 years, and even though some of the girls now live out of state, we still managed to get together via Skype this year to exchange our gifts.  Yay, technology!

A stipulation of our gift exchange is that at least 1 thing has to be handmade.  So I designed this calendar using images I’ve taken over the last few years, printed it out onto card stock, and hand painted a plastic dinosaur to display the calendar.

And now I’m making it available as a free download that you can print yourself!  Enjoy!

[download calendar here]

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I’ve had the wonderful opportunity of meeting & photographing lots of lovely families this year!  Here are a few recent family sessions. =)

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