Sarah and Ben’s wedding took place at Hastings House and was a gorgeous and intimate wedding in Half Moon Bay. Hastings House is a beautiful garden setting and the weather was perfect. Most of the weddings I photograph are 200 or more guests so it’s always fun to get to shoot a smaller wedding where I really get to know everyone and really feel a part of the day. Maybe it’s the intimacy or maybe it’s just because Stephanie and my wedding was very small but I had a great time! After the garden wedding ceremony at Hastings House we did a photo session then drove over to the Garden Court Hotel in Palo Alto. The hotel is a great spot for an intimate reception and the staff was wonderful. Sarah and Ben’s signature drink was flowing and the food was great! Sarah’s family came in from all over the US while Ben’s family came in from his native Australia so I had a great time getting to know everyone and thank everyone for being so gracious with me! And thanks for the VB, that was great! You have to love a bride in a birdcage veil! 
Downtown Palo Alto 
I loved the details! 
The ceiling lamps combined with my off camera lighting make some cool colors! 
This is one of my favorite Photojournalistic photo’s from the wedding. It shows Sarah and Ben dancing then each of the other couples is their parents, very cool! 
Posts Tagged ‘Santa Cruz Wedding photographer’
Sarah and Ben’s Half Moon Bay and Palo Alto Wedding
July 30, 2009Vancouver Wedding/Whistler Vacation/crazy month!
July 21, 2009
A couple weeks ago I headed up to Canada to visit my good friends Chris+Lynn, shoot an amazing wedding (thanks Sonny and Sandy!) and ride my bike at Whistler. The wedding was enormous and a ton of fun, some of the most friendly people I have ever met! Here’s a couple highlights and some fun ones of me doing stupid stuff at Whistler 
Here’s a couple from Whistler Mountain Bike Park. The first couple days there it was beautiful but we didn’t break out the camera until the weather got really nasty! lol Thanks for joining me Bill!
Jumping in the rain was pretty sketchy, especially as I had so much mud in my eyes that I could barely see!
See, I told you it was a bad idea! Thankfully I was wearing body armor, without this I would have had a broken knee for sure!
Bill going off the GLC drops (about 6 foot drop). A minute later I followed with about $5k of camera around my neck, probably not the best idea ever!
We had a day off in the middle of the 4 days of wedding shooting and it was a beautiful day so Chris, Lynn and I headed to the sea shore for lunch, it was a beautiful day!
Desiree and Chris’ Carmel Wedding
November 26, 2008I’ve been so lucky with rain…I guess my streak had to end some time! I’ve had it rain just after we finished shooting and I’ve had it pouring while everyone was getting ready but this time my luck ran out! Not to fear, Desiree and Chris were so awesome and it hardly even bothered them! Luckily, we made it through the ceremony and had just started the family photo’s when it started really coming down. Of course I was prepared with umbrellas and all my lighting equipment so we jumped back into a hallway (there weren’t a whole lot of covered areas at Rancho Canada Golf Course!) and went to work. Of course as soon as we finished the rain stopped! lol At least it let me get some use from the umbrella’s that normally just sit in my trunk!
Thanks Desiree and Chris, you guys totally kept your cool and were so great to work with! Can’t wait to do our “Day After” shoot next week back in Monterey and Carmel!
Stephanie and Blake’s Santa Cruz Mountain Wedding
November 19, 2008
This past August I was on my way up to some meetings and a commercial shoot in San Francisco when my friend Sara called me up to see if I could help her out with Stephanie and Blake’s wedding in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Having grown up just a few miles from the venue I just couldn’t say no! It was a beautiful and very warm day up on the summit. I do find that I’d much rather be the primary than the secondary photographer but I do think it’s fun to try to emulate the other photographer’s style so the client gets images that really work together.
Stephanie and Blake are a great couple and very gracious, I especially enjoyed that blue shot that is in the picture below, that was delicious! lol
Desiree and Chris’s Los Gatos Engagement Photos
August 6, 2008
Desiree and Chris are the kind of couple I just love to be around; when they are together they both just light up and become more than when they are apart. Probably 2 seconds into our session I saw not only just how in love with each other they are but also how much one of them is truly a part of the other! They are that couple that we all say “they were made for each other!”
We met up in Los Gatos, which is beautiful town about 50 miles south of San Francisco and near San Jose. I grew up just over the hill in Santa Cruz so it felt nice to be “home.” We started out by heading up Highway 9 out of Saratoga into the Santa Cruz Mountains until we found a turnout on the side of a stream that had PERFECT lighting! It was right on the side of the road but the lighting was just amazing and the images were beautiful. Desiree and Chris were great, not even caring about the cars driving by with some even honking approval!
We then went just a little ways back down the road to a regional park then to the beautiful The Mountain Winery
I had a great time with you both and I can’t wait to shoot your wedding down in Carmel!
This is one of my favorite images, the beautiful light and the overall feel really help illustrate how passionate Chris and Desiree are for each other
They couldn’t stop having a good time!
Here’s some of that gorgeous light
If you look closely, I think you can see them melting together! 
haha, I love how Chris is checking out Desiree here!
Brian and Sophie in Carmel
July 17, 2008
Last weekend I headed up to San Francisco for a beautiful wedding with my good friend John Griffin (more from that wedding later) and stopped by Pacific Grove to meet with Brian and Sophie for their engagement session. The smoke from the Big Sur fires was a concern but seeing as it ended up being super foggy it didn’t really matter in the end!
Both Brian and Sophie are Biologists by trade and by lifestyle. They thoroughly enjoy the outdoors and being in nature, being that I am an avid cyclist we all get along really well! Brian is a self described “Bird Nerd” who not only works tracking bird populations but he is also a bird photographer and avid bird watcher. It was really cool to be walking through the forest and he knew the names of every bird we saw and could even identify them by their call. I might just borrow his bazooka of a lens, the Canon 500mm f/4, just to have some fun with at the wedding. Being that the combined weight with my camera would be about 13lbs, I might have to bring a third assistant just to lug it around!
Sophie and Brian were a ton of fun to work with and have such a great time with each other.
Walking down Asilomar Beach
I couldn’t resist the comparison to birding, lol
Wasatch leading the way!
In front of the Carmel City Hall
