eileen and tj

i love eileen and tj. they are wonderfully down to earth and kind AND have great style! eileen called me just a month before her wedding in a bit of a panic. she was nervous her vision wasn't coming together and wanted to shore up the aesthetic and experiential side of her wedding. my favorite part of the conversation was when she said, "I'm not even sure what it is you do but as I was going back through my favorite images in my files, I finally noticed your name was on most of them...so will you come do whatever it is you do at my wedding?"

so we had a few conversations, i did a little online and flea market shopping, and in a few weeks, i was out at their ranch. we did a walk thru a few days before the wedding, made some revisions in the flow and set-up, and spent the next few days putting it all together (and fitting in a bit of hanging out). they had a really great fleet of help and vendors and I had a really great time getting to know everyone.

the day of the wedding was a lot of fun, too. i just made sure everyone and everything looked just right and spent a lot of the day with jose, too, arranging for his frame. all in all, a great wedding! :)

Photography by Jose Villa

Cinematography by Joel Serrato

Planning by Toast Events Santa Barbara

Flowers by Brown Paper Design

Brides dresses and veil by Temperly, (middle dress by Phillip Lim), shoes by Louboutin

Grooms suit by Battistoni, shoes by Berluti

Bridesmaid Dresses by Saja

Lighting by Trevor at Bella Vista

Rentals by Classic Party Rentals

Libations by Susan Ledig Events, Desserts by Grappolo and Crushcakes

just for fun.....this is me on the job :)

kristine and bruce

in may of 2009, kristine found herself the victim of a nearly fatal car crash. as a trauma nurse herself, she immediately assessed her conditions and knew she was in serious trouble. miraculously, there were three other nurses on the road who happened to witness the accident and were immediately at her aide which saved her life. she told me the event changed so much for her and was the main catalyst for her and bruce to go ahead and marry….almost exactly one year later.

when kristine came to me she had already picked out the venue: the very magical Barnsley Gardens, and their attire, but found herself stalling when it came to setting the scene. she knew she wanted it to be playful and colorful AND she wanted it to walk the line between casual and elegant. so i called on tec petaja to shoot the wedding, chelsea petaja made the papergoods, chocolate pink made the cake, and me and my crack team (ginny branch, emily, and megan), armed with vintage linens, bolts of satin ribbon, and a serious load of flowers felt like wedding fairies [albeit very sweaty fairies :/ ] adding all the whimsical pretties kristine requested to the feral ruins.

tec and chelsea

in case these pictures are too small for you :) here are some more...a little bigger:

so i'm switching over my wedding portfolio from gallery style to blog style and i thought i'd start here with tec and chelsea's wedding...mostly because this was kind of the wedding that started it all for me, so i thought i'd share the history. 

back in 2009, i had been shooting weddings for...maybe 7 years? and i began to want to switch from photographing weddings to setting them up because i saw SO much potential in what a wedding could be. tec is a great wedding photographer/friend and as ran my ideas by him one day he said, "hey! that makes a lot of sense! chelsea and i totally trust you and would love that kind of help for our upcoming wedding!"

i've known chelsea since she was in high school and the girl is so awesome and so creative and both she and tec have a really unique sense of personal style. she had some ideas of what she wanted her wedding to be like but A) wasn't quite sure how to pull it all together and needed a sounding board and B) knew she couldn't make it all happen on the weekend/day of her wedding. so we sat down and had a few brainstorming sessions together and then a few days before the wedding, i showed up with a truck full of stuff and along with a crew of her family and friends, we whipped up a wedding.

this wedding was also significant because it was the first time i met and worked with jose (as in THE legendary jose villa). this was a bit intimidating at the time but turned out to be the beginning of something beautiful.