about the artist

I love having fun, learning new things, making people smile, and telling stories. I love seeing life through fun angles. I enjoy inspiring others as well as being inspired by others. I have the most supportive husband, best friend, and partner. We enjoy hiking, traveling, our furry kids, snowboarding, weddings, and of course, photography.

I love weddings. Weddings are filled with thoughtful details and emotions, and I love capturing those precious memories. I love telling vivid wedding stories. I put my heart into every photo, so you will see personality, new perspectives, a great story, and life in my photos.

I work unobtrusively, using my mix of photojournalism, candid, and fine-art portraiture style. I document those important moments with the most interesting, truthful and beautiful perspective. I understand how much time and thought is put into each wedding - that’s why it is so important to me that you to experience your big day all over again every time you see your pictures.

The opportunity to capture your memories and tell the story of such a special day is truly an honor to me. I enjoy developing relationships with each couple, which allows me to make each set truly unique & memorable.

This blog is where I will update my most recent photos along with random bits from my life. It is a casual place to get to know each other. If there are specific photos you want to see more of, you can click on the categories at the top to see photos of that category. I hope you find what you’re looking for here. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments! I’d love to hear from you!

Travel welcomed!

Booking exclusively for 2010.

FYI, there is only one Saturday left for each April, May, and September.

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santa monica wedding photography | brenda + chris

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 Posted in weddings

I just love that opening image of the wedding party. You may recognize Chris and Brenda from their super cute engagement session. They had a super fun wedding day. Chris and Brenda held their ceremony in Chris’ parents beautiful backyard in San Marino – yes, the same city where Father of the Bride took place.

I love the getting ready moments… like this moment of her mom helping her with her veil.

While they were getting ready, Chris sent Brenda a note and made her tear up. Her perfect makeup was done by the fabulous Nicole Deanne.

She wrote back and sealed it with a kiss… only to get a funny “too generic, try again” message back.

The guys all wore suspenders. I totally love the look.

I love this next photo of Chris waiting for the ceremony to start.

Commerce Flowers decorated the backyard with pink, green & white lanterns.

they also had pink & white parasols for their guests.

They released white doves at the end of the ceremony!

Then we were off to the Sheraton Delfina in Santa Monica for their reception. Of course you can’t be in Santa Monica without running onto the beach!

We had such a fun time with the wedding party on the beach!!

They were such troopers! I kept making them run up and down the beach and they were still all smiles.

And I love this photo of them walking back. They look so cool, though they’re probably just tired from all the running. hehe. We then headed back to the reception to catch the tail end of cocktail hour.

For favors, they gave out mini beard papas, boxed and wrapped in super cute paper. One of their groomsmen owns 2 beard papa’s!

I LOVE the gorgeous kimono Chris’ mom wore:

They had some of the most hilarious speeches:

Congrats to Brenda & Chris! Your wedding and reception were beautiful!

The wonderful vendors who made this wedding possible:

Flowers: Commerce Flowers
Make up & hair: Nicole Deanne
Cake: Torrance Bakery
Cream puff favors: Beard Papas
Coordinator: Serenity Events (Caroline Chang)
Coordinator: White August (John Kim)

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Tags: Beard Papas, caroline tran, Commerce Flowers, nicole deanne, san marino, santa monica, Sheraton Delfina, Torrance Bakery

by caroline

5 comments

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November 18, 2009 - 11:58 am connieMchung - i LOVE backyard ceremonies! great wedding caroline! :)

November 18, 2009 - 1:39 pm ingyphans - ooohhh..mini beard papas.....nom nom nom nom nom!

November 18, 2009 - 5:27 pm Jenny - the color they picked shows up amazingly on camera ! you always rock the portrait photos ! awesome !

November 20, 2009 - 10:13 am Alexandra - Im in love with these images :) :)

December 9, 2009 - 7:29 pm Nicole DeAnne - Hello Caroline! Thanks so much for the link & a shout out! You are SOOOO sweet! I LOVE your work... SO fresh, I really enjoy your style! I would love to have more photos of Brenda & her bridesmaids Hair & make-up to post on my blog. If you can, that would be great! Hopefully I will get to work with you again sometime soon! Thanks again!

Caroline Tran Photography

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santa monica wedding photography | brenda + chris