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)

I’m sharing this space with Sky Box Events and Muse Makeup Artistry.  We talked about sharing some office space together.  A week later, we were looking at spaces, and a week after that, we were signing a lease!  So fast!  So this is the studio when we got the keys.   We had them change to wood floors for us.

Later that evening, our first piece of furniture was delivered!  A coffee table from Craigslist… with over priced shipping!  The table was a great price, but the shipping was more than the table.

And then with the couches & arm chairs delivered!  I found the couch & armchairs at Salvation Army and then we got them reupholstered.  Yay!  I want to furnish everything with used pieces.  Go green!

I’m going there right now to check on 5 more items that another thrift store just delivered.  And then we gotta paint and restore the pieces.  After the restoration, our big pieces should be done.  Then it’s time to accessorize!  Stay tuned for more updates!

And just a reminder, I’m still doing a buck a comment.  We’re at $60 to charity:water already!

The Oh family and I go way back.  Grace and I met in grad school at UCLA.  I smile when I look at these photos because it makes me realize how much we each have grown.  We had one class in particular that was suuuper boring, and to make it worse, it was on Monday nights from 7-10pm or something crazy like that.  Our other friend Hanna & I convinced innocent Grace to go to happy hour with us before class.  After one sip of her margarita, Grace was already buzzing.  We finished our drinks and walked to class laughing and enjoying our buzz.  Although we were late to class, class was much more enjoyable that evening than usual.

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After graduation, we went to dinner & that was when Grace told us about a new guy she met.  From there, I helped document her wedding, to her first pregnancy, roman’s newborn photos, 100th day photos, and now his one year.  There was actually a really cute 7 months session too that I didn’t get to blog – darn for being behind!!  It is so amazing though to see Grace blossom into such an amazing mother.  Happy (super) belated birthday to little Roman!  This is your first year as a family of 3:

I just love watching Grace play with Roman.  She really glows.

And I love the photo below on the right of Richard throwing Roman in the air.

Roman actually just learned to walk a few weeks before our session, but he already kept trying to run off on his own.  Typical eldest child. 

I saw an “O” and couldn’t help but to put him in it.  You can tell he would’ve rather been in the water.  He knows what he wants and how to demand it!  “Take me there!”

“hey, come join me!” – another example of him knowing how to demand things:

Little Roman, you are the luckiest little guy.  You have the best parents.  I am so lucky to have been able to watch you grow through your first year.  I look forward to more adventures with you!

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P.S.  I have a few spots left for my holiday portrait special!  One more spot for Nov 7 in LA and one for Nov 21 in Monterey.

When I typed “chicago, IL” in the opening image above, it suddenly hit me that I really shot an engagement session in Chicago!  Until this trip, I had never been out of the Pacific Time Zone in the US before!  30 minutes into the flight there, I look out the window and realized we were still over land.  I was waiting to see ocean, and then realized that this was my first time ever flying east of LA!

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Anna actually found me from a single photo of a favor I took that was featured on Brides.com.  I think it’s amazing how she connected to that one image and followed that one image to my site.  She wanted me to bring my CA style over to Chicago.  Honestly, I was a bit nervous, but I’m ecstatic at the results!!  So I present to you when this LA girl meets Chicago:

Anna is an architect, so we started at The Rookery, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright!  They ended up being super strict and we were not allowed beyond the lobby, so we ran around the city instead…

I LOVE the bridge and tall buildings!  I’ve never seen so many tall buildings before with trains running right in between them!

We then headed to North Ave State Beach.  I totally felt at home.  The only difference is that the sun doesn’t set behind the ocean like it does in LA, but I totally love the end results!

What do you think so far?  Have I brought the CA flavor yet?  I couldn’t help but to gravitate toward my usual scenes!

And I’ve also never seen a cloud donut around a building until this trip!

And the sunset was amazing.  Definitely different than LA’s sunset, but just as beautiful!

Thank you, Anna & Eric, for such a fun trip!!  I look forward to returning next year for your wedding!

This wedding was featured on the awesome Ruffled blog.  You can check out the story there and share the love!  Lacee & Jason both live in Utah and had a destination wedding in CA.  This was my first time not meeting the couple until the day of the wedding, but it was like meeting an old friend when we finally met as they exited the Oakland LDS Temple.  We immediately clicked through email and I knew we were a great match.  This was also my first LDS wedding.  Big thanks to Jonathan Canlas for dinner & all the great tips on rocking this wedding!

The Oakland Temple is breathtaking!

Funny that it’s at the corner of Lincoln & Lincoln.

Although Lacee & her mom did all the flower arrangements for the reception, the bridal bouquet and boutineers, were done by Swenson & Silacci Flowers.

I love Lacee’s beautiful blue eyes.  And the Oakland Temple has the most beautiful manicured lawn.

When they first started to plan their wedding, Lacee dreamt of renting out a backyard and doing everything herself.  With the family being so big and Lacee feeling a bit overwhelmed with pulling it all together, she ending up renting out a historic house by the Monterey Pier, the Old Whaling Station Adobe, and got the best of both worlds.   Here, they essentially hosted a backyard wedding.

When I first laid eyes on Lacee & Jason’s reception site, my jaw dropped to the floor.  I knew we had the same taste when Lacee sent me all her inspirations – vintage vases, ribbons in trees…basically, a very charming backyard wedding.  I was amazed by how Lacee & her mom pulled together this amazing “backyard wedding”!  They are DIY queens!

Lacee & her mom (with help from friends & family) did ALL of the decor & catering.  They hung ribbons from the trees in the back yard and hung a variety of lanterns too.  For florals, they bought a variety of vintage vases, mason jars, etc.

Lacee’s adorable dress was purchased from Allyse’s Bridal and then modified to have sleeves, a sash, & some bunching.

I love his grandma’s vintage chalkboard.

All the hanging ribbons and lanterns were so enchanting.

Lacee and her mom were the master minds behind these beautiful tablescapes.

And I love how they put flowers in vintage dishes, like her grandma’s pink teacup, pictured above.

Lacee even hand wrote all their favor tags!

And I love her cake!  It looks like a big marshmallow!  So cute & elegant! The cake was from Layers.

Their cupcakes were from Mrs. Delish’s Cupcake Boutique.  They were sooo good!  And I love the milk jars!

It’s really amazing how they pulled this all together themselves.  I kept telling Lacee & her mom that they should totally start their own event design studio!  How cute it would be to have mom & daughter working side-by-side!  I was very excited when Lacee recently told me that she & her mom will be starting an event design business after all!  Let me know if you’re looking for an event designer and I’ll put you in touch with them!

Jason was skeptical about the importance of photography in the beginning, so it was really cute to read Lacee’s email to me right after the wedding:  It was so great to have you at the wedding.  I am so very excited and grateful I got to have you as our photographer.  I just wanted you to know something Jason said.  He said, “I am so glad we had Caroline as our photographer.  I was very comfortable around her and her husband, they were fun to hang out with and they didn’t make me do any stupid poses.  I could tell she did a lot of unique and creative shots.  I am excited to see them.  I’m really glad she was our photographer…  I think having Caroline as our photographer really made the wedding.  It was perfect.”  I just wanted you to know that, coming from someone who was worried before, that is huge!  I second his comments.  THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!  You are brilliant, I loved hanging out with you guys.  You really are wonderful and a sweetheart.  I wish we could have just hung out the whole time.  Ha ha ha.  Everyone very much enjoyed you and your husband Jonathan’s company.  Thank you for doing that for us.