Back in December I shot an engagement session for my good friends Becca & Keiji. A couple months later Becca contacted me saying they wanted to do another shoot. Another shoot? Was the first not good enough? Were we missing shots?? As I wracked my mind for answers, she explained that they wanted this one to be a Japanese style shoot, complete with kimonos & montsukis!! How genius is that? Continuing with the Japanese theme, they decided to do the shoot in the Cal Poly Pomona Japanese garden, a garden that has special significance since (1) Keiji teaches landscape architecture at Cal Poly and (2) the garden was designed by his father (who has designed lots of other beautiful gardens all over Southern Cali). I loved the story behind the kimono Becca was wearing – it belonged to Keiji’s mother and was worn by her at her own wedding. And seriously, Becca was such a trooper in it – I’ve been stuffed into a kimono my fair share of times and let me tell you, as pretty as it is, it’s equally as painful. “Suffocating” and “rib-squishing” are also adjectives I like to use  :)

Certain parts of the garden looked just like it was fall!

We headed back to Keiji’s house after the shoot but the fun didn’t end there! Apparently an equally awesome garden surrounds the sides and back of his home. So of course we had to run around and grab some shots in there too…

A big thank you to Becca and Keiji for coming up with this fun idea and including me in it! And a ginormo thanks to Scott and his camera for tagging along this time too. Hopefully I can post some of his shots up here soon as well!