Amy & Roger – Married! | San Francisco Wedding Photographer

Amy and Roger were married last month. I just love this couple!! (That's them above in the image of my blog header, and you may remember their awesome engagement photos). This was a very unique wedding and there were 2 parts to the day... the traditional Chinese ceremony and then the traditional "western" ceremony. These ceremonies were held in 2 different locations and were very different from each other! It was a really neat experience to shoot the traditional ceremony and see all of the gifts that were passed between each family and the bright colors and decorations (and the whole roasted pig!). Amy had her gorgeous traditional custom Chinese dress flown in straight from China! The western ceremony was very beautiful and was down in Santa Cruz. Outdoor ceremony, white chairs, gorgeous flowers and a beautiful cake... the day was amazing. They also had one of the engagement photos enlarged VERY BIG to 24x30 and framed next to the cake. I admit, having photos printed that large sometimes makes me really nervous because you can see everything in a print that big... so it's truly the ultimate test of a successful photo -- the accuracy of color, clarity, density and the printer all working together... WHEW I'm glad it came out good! One of the things that I like so much about weddings is seeing the families interact and listening to the toasts -- I know it sounds corny but you can really get a good sense of what the bride/groom are like by the speeches during the toast. I tell ya - the family and friends who got up to give Amy and Roger toasts (there were many) were all so thoughtful and said the nicest things, they got me choking up and I was on the edge of losing it! ...This is why I like being behind the camera and not in front of it! Anyhow, it was a fantastic day and I was really looking forward to their wedding because I had such a great time with them for the engagement session. They have such natural chemistry together that it's hard not to love shooting them! Here is an assortment of images from the day. They are in chronological order and there are alot of them! The Tea Ceremony took place at Amy's parent's house. The groom and his family present the bride's family with gifts which were then brought over to the house and put on the floor as offerings. One of the gifts is an entire whole roasted pig! Unfortunately I did not shoot this part of the gift-giving, but my assistant, Morgan Bellinger, did! He did a fantastic job with Roger and the groomsmen and all of the gifts. Check out his photo of the pig entering the house! The tea ceremony basically went like this: The families and friends would each take turns drinking specially prepared tea. They would arrive in pairs to Amy and Roger. Each person would take a sip of tea and then they would each present Amy and Roger with a gift, and sometimes jewelry. It was very interesting and I learned also that numbers play a big part in the Chinese culture -- some numbers are very lucky and others aren't! After the Tea Ceremony we drove to Santa Cruz for the western ceremony and reception. The ceremony was held at Chaminade, which is a beautiful hotel spa and resort nestled in the redwoods of Santa Cruz.