Baby Theo is the coolest kid on the block.  He lives in a downtown loft, has great style, and best of all, has the most amazing mom & dad in the world.  I want to be just like his mom!  She has such a great sense of style.  She styles for a living and is amazing at it.  Dad is an amazing chef.  For any Top Chef fans out there, you may recognize him from season 2.

I love Theo’s room!  I love the Oeuf Sparrow crib, the mix of their initials on the wall, & the huge chalkboard above his crib!

It’s so beautiful to see how head-over-heels they are over little Theo.  I totally know how they feel.

I also LOVE that big light up letter T in his room… which is actually just a corner of their loft.  And I love the clothes rack made of pipes!

I love the minimalism in their bedroom.  I love all white bedrooms.

They have the best of both worlds – cool downtown loft and a “backyard”… with a great view too.

Theo is a month older than Cameron, so it was really fascinating to see what I had to look forward to.

Theo, your family is so beautiful, inside & out.  You are one lucky fellow!  I look forward to seeing you grow.  Thank you for sharing part of your world with me!

and for those who like the technical stuff, this was shot with a mix of film (both 35mm & medium format) & digital, probably 60/40 respectively.

I’m really excited to share with you this LA chic wedding.  This wedding can also be seen as a real wedding on Junebug weddings and featured on What Junebug Loves!  That opening image really says a lot about Sarah & Raymond’s wedding – glam, elegant, and with a pop of rock n roll.

Their wedding took place in the middle of downtown LA.  Sarah had the perfect  Monique Lhuillier dress.

The amazing flowers were created by the very talented Euri & Kendra of Fleuretica. I LOVE the deep red peonies and garden roses!

I also love this photo Jonathan got of the guys getting ready:

Can you feel the anticipation of Sarah waiting for her day to start:

Again, that gorgeous bouquet of red peonies!  And their invites, which was designed by Sarah’s cousin (who’s still in high school!) and printed in Indonesia, where Sarah’s entire family resides:

The black and white, with pops of red is just so classic and elegant.  And I couldn’t get over how glamorous Sarah looked.  She was stunning!

This was an especially emotional day for Sarah’s family because they live across the world in Indonesia.  I can only imagine the joy her parents must have felt.

Love this moment:

Sarah’s little nephew cracks me up in this first kiss photo:

Cocktail hour and reception took place under the stars, right in the middle of downtown LA.  It was gorgeous to see all the tall buildings around us.

Favors were JJ Royal Indonesian Civet Coffee… yes, brought all the way from Indonesia, and yes, Civet Coffee!  I’ve been wanting to try Civet Coffee… supposed to be the best & the most expensive coffee!

And I’ve always loved these fingerprint trees as guest sign-in:

Sarah & Raymond totally rocked their first dance.  Raymond is an amazing dancer!  And so is his dad!

Food was delicious.  Decor was gorgeous.  And there was a photobooth by Photobox LA all night.

This is the highlight of my night…  later in the night, Sarah changed into her grandmother’s dress.  This was the same dress her grandmother wore to Sarah’s parent’s wedding, and the same dress her sister wore at her own wedding.  Sarah had the whole crowd crying when she talked about her grandmother in her thank you speech.

And I have a soft spot for moments between father & daughter:

The wedding team included:

Hello from France!  Last September, I went to Chicago to shoot Anna and Eric’s engagement photos.   Coincidentally, Eileen had inquired about my photography services and happen to live in Chicago.  After my shoot, Eileen came over to my hotel and we had some martinis at the bar together.  We ended up chatting for hours!  We hung out way into the night and didn’t realize how much time had flown by.  They didn’t have their wedding planned yet when we met, so it has been a fun journey for me to see their whole wedding day develop.

They’re getting married in LA next month!  Huge kudos to them for planning a LA wedding from Chicago!  They flew here for a weekend to take care of everything – engagement session, meet vendors, food tasting, etc.  What I love most is how much fun they’re both having with the whole process.  We took their engagement photos in between their meetings with potential caterers… and they still looked so relaxed and just had a ball!

Roland got called in to work at the last minute while I was in Chicago, so I never got to meet him.  It was so cool to finally meet him on this shoot!  I totally fell in love with Eileen at first meeting, so I was so happy for her when I finally got to meet Roland and see what a good guy he is.  Gorgeous couple, aren’t they?  They’re really just as beautiful inside as they are outside too.

I loved Roland even more when I got a glimpse of his cute socks when he sat down!

One of my favorite photos from this session:

This totally shows how cute they are:

I also love this next photo:

And I love this last photo:

Can’t wait for their wedding next month!!

Different from what I usually shoot, isn’t it?  Diane and Eric wanted some night shots with his car.  I usually shoot very light-weight, just my camera and 2 lenses.  Sometimes I’ll bring two bodies to an engagement shoot, but usually not.  Since they wanted some night shots, I had Jonathan go rent a tripod… and while he was at it, I had him rent 24mm tilt shift too.    Might as well, right?  hehe.  I was excited to stretch myself and try something new.  It’s a lot more tiring to run around with tripods and off camera flashes.  But we had so much fun and finally put our pocket wizards to good use!

As we waited for sun to set, I got some of my standard shots.    Aren’t they beautiful??

The following shot is so much easier w/ a tripod!!  All my previous versions were all hand held!

The above was taken with my 24L and the below was taken with the 24 TS.

And then it was finally dark!  Even though we were using flashes, I still wanted a softness to the photos.   I like how they turned out!

Thanks Diane & Eric for all your patience as we ran around & waited for sun to set!  It was so much fun hanging out and I’m so excited to travel up north later this month for your wedding on Santana Row!

I love how the lollipop matched her dress!

Their love is so sweet – just like the lollipop!

The light was just so amazing!

I have another cool story related to this part of their engagement session.  I’ll post that in a few days, so stay tuned for the side story + part 3!   Happy hump day!