Having been independent wedding photographers working for ourselves for our clients for the past over seven years, we've gotten to experience a ridiculous number of peoples' best day of their lives! This comes is a huge privilege to us. Other than the day that peoples' children are born, the day that they graduate from higher education, purchase their first home, start their first business, or other amazing adulthood moments, it's a day of huge significance. Though relationships come and go, a wedding is still a hugely significant day in a couples' life and for good reason. Two people decide to come together and live their lives together constantly working together, compromising, helping one another and others, and building an entire life together out of their loving union. No relationship looks the same. Some couples run businesses together, some work worlds apart, some choose to have families, some are introverted and covet oddities together, and others still come from different countries to be together. The diversity of it all is beautiful to us. We're still not hardened and pessimistic about relationships or marriages, rather we're optimistic that they bring substance and breadth to life. That's not to say that other ways of life are worse. There's also absolutely nothing wrong with being and staying single if you're living your best life. As long as you're living in contentment with mental and physical health, you do you!
Coming up in less than a week is the May 30th Anniversary of Jamie & Karen's Montecito, California wedding! Since we never put it up on our blog, we wanted to #ThrowbackWednesday to their beautiful day just a couple years ago! Located just about 10 minutes from our old home city of Santa Barbara, California this wedding took place is beautiful coastal Montecito, CA. These two kept things intimate and personal with a family wedding of only a few close family members on their estate. Although small in size, the location was visually stunning with the well-pruned gardens and floral details adding to the splendor of the decorations.
Before the ceremony, Karen and Jamie headed to Summerland Beach for some photos of just them together. Known for being one of the smaller and less populated beaches of the area, there wasn't any interruption from any beachgoers which made for great portraits. Looking to make the most of their session (and avoid getting her main dress too sandy) Karen came dressed in a special dress just for our "pre ceremony" session. A rare overcast day for the area even granted us some nice soft and elegant source of natural light.
Following our beach portrait session, we headed back to Karen and Jamie's estate. Once here, Karen came alone to get a few more images of her around the property. It was hard to get a bad shot at this beautiful location and we definitely left with a few very memorable images. Afterward there was even time to finish up with a few detail and preparation shots of the groomsmen before the ceremony itself began.
The ceremony itself was short and sweet with things being officiated by the father of the groom. After a few tense moments of waiting for the procession to begin, the couple approached a beautifully decorated trellis to be bound to one another. The best man delivered a heartfelt speech to bride and groom (his father) just prior to Jamie and Karen exchanging their own vows. A passing layer of clouds created a great bright yet soft light helping to make the ceremony even more breathtaking.
Following the ceremony itself there was one last portrait session with both Karen and Jamie. Having just been brought together through marriage, we wanted to get just a few more images showcasing the couple's excitement. Again, the beautiful grounds of their home provided ample flora to work with and these images were captured just feet from where the ceremony had just been held.
A special magenta toned contact print that we made by hand for the couple as a gift.
All-in-all the wedding was peaceful and gorgeous. Happy (early) Anniversary to you, Karen and Jamie! We hope that everyone is happy and healthy!
This past weekend we photographed a University of Notre Dame graduation for 3 days in a row- a whopping 21 hours of photography dedicated to the awesome university graduation! Though it drizzled a bit, we had a blast with the undergrad graduate and his family. On top of that photo editing, we have some awesome meetings with our wedding clients coming up within the week week and photo products to send out tomorrow for clients, but we're also getting very exciting about the rest of the weddings coming up this summer and fall (and next summer to be honest)! We're in the midst of finishing up some wedding photo editing for clients and will soon be creating their gorgeous physical wedding albums and hundreds of printed photos, so we're getting pretty set with our wedding work schedule for the year and are so ready for what's ahead! Thanks so much to our clients, friends, and family for all of the support through the years! We've loved working for you and/ or showing you the art we've created. And of course shout out to all entrepreneurs who've started from scratch within the past 10 years and made a thriving business due to hard work and education!