Let me tell you a little something about wedding photography. The process of initially meeting and getting to know clients is a very interesting thing. It’s almost akin to dating, where you’re trying to get to know each other, and see if there’s a connection, if you’re a good match, if your personalities mesh. I tell my prospective clients that your wedding photographer is with you the whole day and I always stress how important it is that you feel comfortable around them, so I firmly believe in the importance of this connection. Where we really share a similar aesthetic and vision, where we can get excited about the same things, where their love makes me feel so inspired, where my jokes (as unfunny as they are) somehow make them laugh.

And I swear within 5 minutes of talking to Janelle it felt like I had known her for years. And as we chatted more and started planning their engagement session I got even more excited about working with them! You’d like to bring some craft beer to the session? Some cookbooks? Oh you’re wearing a big dreamy blue skirt? And when Janelle said they wanted to do a portion of the session in a coffee shop that had “exposed brick and cool wood”, and I sent her a link to one of my most favorite places, she emailed me back and wrote “you get me.” :)

It was such a joy to document this sweet & super personalized session and I can’t wait to photograph their wedding (and work with the fantastic team at Mele Amore) next year!

I always love when a couple chooses a meaningful spot for their engagement photos. Like perhaps, the pretty courtyard of a Thai restaurant where they had their very first date? These kinds of memory-filled locations just instantly seem to have a certain magic to them – you’re transported back to those moments where you had your first quiet conversations, shared your first laughs, where you felt that excited pitter-patter and that glow in your heart, and secretly hoped and wished with all your might that they felt it too. Because a pretty backdrop is pretty backdrop, but it becomes all that more beautiful when it’s a paramount piece in the story of your relationship :)

I had so much fun exploring Pasadena and visiting the gorgeous Saladang Song for this shoot! MaiKhanh and Jeff are so awesome – I remember at our first meeting it felt like we had a million things to talk about, and I loved getting to continue our conversations over delish Thai food at the end of the session. (And on that note, I realized the past couple sessions I’ve posted here have concluded with a delicious meal. I suppose it’s a cold hard fact – if you like food, we’re going to get along just swell :)

Jess is a friend of mine from oh, maybe the 1st grade? We used to make “green tea” with mint leaves (plus a bunch of other questionable stuff) from my backyard and try to feed it to our younger sisters. She always had the most epic birthday parties and perhaps even let me copy her geometry homework once or twice (SCREW YOU PROOFS). I would like to compare Jess to Mary Poppins, in that she’s practically perfect in every way. She is ridiculously smart, horribly sweet, fabulously silly, abundantly kind, and a great friend.

So when she first told me about Rich, I may have been a bit skeptical. Because who could be so perfect for such a perfect person? But upon hearing about him and meeting him I realized that he somehow also is smart, and sweet, and silly, and kind, and most of all makes Jess endlessly happy. The proof (NOT THE GEOMETRY KIND) is in the photos. In the way he’s gazing at her in this one. The way she’s laughing in that one. Their whole engagement session was so joyful, so personal, so real.

It may have helped that we shot in a wonderful little Italian restaurant {La Sosta Enoteca – oh the light! the rustic chairs! those billowy curtains!} in Hermosa Beach, where they had many of their first dates and first memories. Or that Rich brought along his two awesome daughters (be sure to scroll down!) for the second half of the session on the beach.

As I always hope for in engagement sessions, this one did seem so them – practically perfect in every way :)