Leaving you with a quick picture of us before the Airhorns & Lasers party last night (because a camera phone pic is better than no pic at all!)

The details were perfectly inspired by the holiday - a playful pink palette, nostalgic boxed Valentine cards for guests to write messages on, “love” in different languages adorning the tables. The cherry on top was THE most amazing dessert table - heart-shaped donuts, lollipops, white-chocolate covered pretzels, teensy confetti heart candies - it was a feast for both the eyes & tummy!

A big shout out to the fabulous Alicia of In the Now - the day flowed absolutely perfectly & effortlessly thanks to her & her team! Having a good coordinator on your day is invaluable, and I could see how she covered every detail so Heather & Joe could relax 100% & enjoy the day :)

And Heather & Joe - thank you for allowing us to share in such an absolutely amazing occasion. I’m so happy our paths have crossed & feel so blessed to have witnessed your amazing love! Wishing you all the best for years to come!

Venue: Pala Mesa Resorts
Coordinator: Alicia Harnden of In The Now Weddings
Florals: Commerce Flowers
Hair & Makeup: Beauty & the Beach
Videographer: 1Acerex1
DJ: Props FX
Lounge: Lounge Appeal

** please contact us prior to reposting the images elsewhere on the web… thanks! :) **

Deb & David’s engagement session was like a little tour of Orange County!

We started off at the John Wayne Airport, where Deb flies in when visiting David on weekends. This portion of the session reminded me of the opening/ending scenes in Love Actually where all the loved ones are meeting up at the arrival gate with the hugging and the laughing and the crying (it makes me bawl immediately). It’s easy to forget with the long layovers & uncomfy seats & bad meals, but airports really can be magical places, and John Wayne has become a special place for Deb & David, a way for them to stay connected as they live on opposite ends of the state. They’re actually building their wedding around this travel theme, and I know it’s going to be completely spectacular!

For the second portion we shot at The Lab, the cool “anti-mall” in Costa Mesa, and we finished up at Laguna Beach, which was covered in lovely light and seashells of every shape & size.

I love love loved hanging out with Deb & David - they were so super sweet, so in love, and so relaxed - they had tons of creative ideas but also put their complete trust in us for the photos. Can’t wait until their San Francisco wedding in July!

A couple weeks after the session Deb sent me their save-the-date, which David designed. How perfect is that little airplane-shaped paperclip?

I’m a wee bit envious of Mai & John who live in the heart of downtown LA. Everytime I pass through downtown there is a new amazing restaurant, collection of lofts for sale, wine bar, line of shops - it would be quite dreamy to live in an airy loft near Little Tokyo, being just a few steps away from ramen, or fancy schmancy hot dogs, & tons of perfect cafes. The next best thing though, of course, is to shoot there :)

I love the arts district and Mai & John worked it so well! We found lots of great spots before heading to Union Station to finish up. Such a fun afternoon - so excited for their wedding come July!

P.S. This has never happened before, but we randomly bumped into 3 (3!) photographers that we knew during this session - Serena, Dave, & my sister. We bumped into the last one first, and as I was chatting with Mai & John, explaining, “yeah, the arts district is really popular for photoshoots”, Scott goes “um, I think that’s your sister.” Crazy!

But during that initial meeting {which may or may not have lasted an excess of 2 hours}, Dawn also shared with me more about herself on a deeper level - about Craig, about their story, the 17 bicycles they had in their garage, their love of food & travel, their battle & triumph over cancer. I could feel her love for Craig resonate in her words, and I knew the day would be a true celebration & beautiful on every level. Dawn shared the below story on her blog, and I’m sharing a part of it here, as I feel it so sums up their inspiring relationship:

I remember the exact moment I knew that we would be together forever, the moment I realized we were already one. It was the day I was diagnosed with breast cancer. When I called Craig to tell him the diagnosis his response was a simple “Oh my God, we have cancer”. It was that “we” that has been the foundation for every moment since then.

Though Dawn painted me a beautiful picture of her wedding plans during our first meeting & I watched her ideas unfold via her blog, I was still taken aback by the sheer amazingness of their wedding day. Every aspect was filled to the brim with Dawn & Craig’s personality - there were colorful shoes, tables named after bicycles, vintage books, birch details, and all sorts of wintery genius brought to life by the insanely talented Shawna Yamamoto. And of course there was laughter, there were sweet glances, lots of spontaneous clapping (Dawn’s trademark expression of excitement ;), and above all, an overabundance of love.

Dawn & Craig - Thank you so much for giving Scott and I the opportunity to share in this exciting time in your lives & capture your most beautiful day. I feel so blessed to have met such kind & amazing people, and to walk away from this with new friends. So excited for you & your many more years of experiencing life as a “we” to come :)

I was pretty much madly in love with Dawn’s birdcage veil & stole, so elegant & stylish:

Love this one of them with their cameras! :)

And the reception. I think I literally forgot to breathe when I entered the room - it was a total & complete winter wonderland, shining bark-laden centerpieces, birch branches, sparkly “snow” - every inch was absolutely magical.

The escort card table alone was a wintery masterpiece:

With the help of a few friends, Dawn folded 1000 cranes, a Japanese tradition for good luck. Cranes are said to mate for life, so this tradition represents longevity & devotion in marriage. Every crane I have ever folded in my life has come out to be an amorphous non-crane catastrophe, so I have IMMENSE respect for Dawn who folded so many, especially out of such tiny paper. She found someone in Hawaii to assemble the cranes into a birch tree and the result was stunning.

Dawn wanted something unique for the guestbooks. She found a handful of vintage upcycled books on Etsy and filled them with lovely marriage quotes (suggested by her blog readers) & their engagement photos. Guests then filled the pages with photos from the photobooth accompanied by sweet messages.

A tradition of jade necklaces from Craig’s mother & aunts:

Venue: Our Lady Queen of Angels + SeaCliff Country Club in Orange County, CA
Florals & Event Design: Shawna Yamamoto Event Design
Lighting: Amber Event Design
Videography: Garner Films
Photobooth: Capital Photo Booth Co (these guys are awesome, they do custom color photobooths!)
DJ: Battleson Entertainment

** please contact us prior to reposting the images elsewhere on the web… thanks! :) **

Suzanne & Robert took the idea of a personalized engagement session and ran with it! They both love the outdoors, & in her emails, Suzanne painted a picture of them camping, with hot chocolate, a tent, and lush natural surroundings. And so for the second half of Suzanne & Robert’s session, we ventured into the hills for a mini camping trip. I love all the details they gathered {Suzanne even brought along her trusty SLR} & their outfit choices as well - the perfect blend of rustic + outdoorsy + stylish, which fit the settings perfectly! We had so much fun setting up the scene & running around the area. And props to Robert & Scott for pitching the tent in what has to be the fastest time I’ve seen - and I’ve done some lightening-fast tent setups in my Girl Scouting days (okay, I lie, we were much better at selling cookies than pitching tents.)

I posted these up on Twitter today as well, but I’ll leave you with a sneak peek from the two amazing weddings we had the honor of documenting this weekend! They were both filled with such emotion & love - can’t wait to share more!

I loved how the session came out - it wasn’t the cover of a UCLA brochure, with Royce Hall & the Sculpture Garden in the background, it was the UCLA that Suzanne & Rob remembered best. It was the hallways where they had neighboring offices, where they belonged to student coalitions fighting hunger and homelessness in LA, it was the “less-scenic” South Campus where they would meet between classes, it was the back lunch patio by a familiar building.

For Scott and I it would have been the Wooden Center, and underground parking structures where we had taiko practice, and *gasp* the engineering building he once gave me a tour of. Talk about unpretty places. But in my memory, they are stunningly beautiful because they represent exciting beginnings and falling in love. I hope when Suzanne & Robert look through these photos, they can feel the same way, filled to the brim with memories of excitement and happy moments :)

Stay tuned for Part II, camping in the wilderness! A tent, hot chocolate, and piggy back rides soon to come!

Suzanne told me that she specifically bought her shirt for the session, & that it was from *swoon* none other than Anthropologie. I think Anthro’s romantic styles always look so beautiful in photos!

I’ve been meaning to create this post since the holidays, when I experienced an influx of macaron-ness in my life. It all started when I was “holiday shopping” at Urban, and as always happens when I’m “holiday shopping” a few too many presents for me made it into my basket. As I browsed the book section, my favorite part of the store, I came across this gem:

A book. ALL ABOUT MACARONS. I squealed, flipped through the matte & minimalist pages and hustled it over to the register, where I proceeded to totally confuse the salesgirl. “What IS this?” she said, staring at the cover. And then I got beet-red and suddenly starting thinking… who buys a book on JUST MACARONS? AM I THE ONLY ONE? IS MY OBSESSION THAT OBVIOUS?

And then she followed with: “are these tiny little hamburgers or something?”

…

And I realized it wasn’t that she was questioning why someone would buy a book on macarons, but that she didn’t even know WHAT THEY WERE. I wiped away a single tear of sorrow in remembrance of my pre-macaron life, and proceeded to explain frantically what amazing things they are. And having been converted, she packed up my book & sent me on my way,which leads us to Holiday Macaron Madness, Part II:

So all the reading and the talking and the thinking about macarons had then led to an unfortunate and acute macaron craving. I HAD to have one IMMEDIATELY, but I was at the Del Amo Mall in Torrance, far far away from LA and it’s slew of little macaron shops. And then I remembered that a little (okay, ginormous) chain of coffee houses had recently started offering macarons. So, hopelessly desperate, I went there, and I got these:

You can read reviews on the Starbucks macarons everywhere, but I’ll just tell you, for being mass produced, and flown across an OCEAN, and refrigerated for possibly days and days and weeks and years, they weren’t totally bad. Some of the flavors were better than others and they were chewier than other legit macarons I’ve had, but I like ‘em chewy. Either way, I got my fix.

Now here comes Part III, which is, in my opinion, the most awesome part. Fast forward a few days later to my birthday. Scott and I are at home and I’m opening up my first gift of the day, the one from him. From your deduction properties, you can probably already guess that they were macarons. But did you guess that they were FELT macarons? Because that’s exactly what they were:

Oh. EM. Gee. As Scott intercepted me from trying to stuff them all into my mouth, he explained that he bought them from our friend’s Etsy shop, Little Fluff Stuff. Janelle is insanely talented and produces all sorts of general felt food & desserts goodness, that has you in a neverending dilemma between whether they should be cuddled or ingested. {Side note: those perfect blue cups were also part of the gift.. they’re vintage & I LOVE the bright color!)

And that concludes this round of macaron adventures. There will be more to come, especially since a little group of macaron-lovers has formed and we’ve been trying a few different places around LA. Stay tuned for our trip to Paulette!