I recently had the privilege of photographing Mylinh & Eitetsu’s wedding. You might recall their engagement session I posted before from the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park, which now seems like so long ago. But alas, their special day finally arrived!

Their wedding was steeped in tradition, starting of course with the Chinese Tea Ceremony the morning of the wedding. At a tea ceremony, the bride and groom serve the elders of the family tea. After each person has been given their tea from the bride and groom, they typically hand the couple a lai see, a lucky red envelope, usually filled with gifts of money or jewlery.

Before the tea ceremony could begin however, the best man had to barter with the bridesmaids to be permitted into the house. I don’t know what the final settlement ended up costing the groom and the groomsmen, but I do know there was some “required” dancing involved that was all in good fun!

The traditional color for Chinese weddings is red. The decor was stunning.

After the tea ceremony, the rest of the wedding was a lot like most traditional American weddings. I photographed the bride getting ready at her hotel room, the bride with her family and bridesmaids, and the groom with his family and groomsmen. Then the ceremony started. Mylinh and Eitestu’s wedding was at one of my favorite locations: Seagrove Park in Del Mar. It’s a gorgeous location for an outdoor wedding in San Diego.

Mylinh looked absolutely stunning:

While I do traditional portraits at weddings, I always like to make sure that everyone’s still having fun and that the time invested into these portraits is minimal and goes by quickly. I think they were having fun!

Eitetsu was looking quite dashing himself!

I seemed to have a blue theme going on because the sky was just so clear and intense! This was my first time at the Lucky Star Chinese Seafood Restaurant, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. As you can see, they totally decked this place out and the lighting was incredible. One of the things that makes wedding receptions photograph so beautifully is the lighting the couple decides to use. Chandeliers, lanterns, tea lights, candles . . . all of these things add interest and depth to photographs of receptions. You can see that Mylinh and Eitetsu created romantic and pretty ambient light that went with the overall look and feel of the wedding.

Eitetsu gave his groomsmen branding irons as their gift. I don’t know the full backstory on these, but here’s Jim who is VERY happy about his branding iron (it says “JIM” in case you were curious).

And finally . . . what might possibly be my most favorite bouquet toss shot of all time:

Congratulations, you guys!

-shawna K

I had the pleasure of photographing Carly and Jack and their Mommy and Daddy in Coronado recently. They are such a beautiful family! The funny part is, Sarah (their mom) looked REALLY familiar to me. Then it dawned on me . . . Sarah and I used to attend the same high school youth group at church together, and we even went on a retreat to Cincinatti together, way back in 1990. It’s such a small world.

I posted earlier from my Missouri trip that I had a new favorite picture of myself (even though Devyn wasn’t looking to swinging in it). Well, I changed my mind. THIS is my new favorite picture of myself:

I normally HATE pictures of myself, but I really like this one. I took it myself, which isn’t easy to do, and it got me thinking about a “preserving your memories” segment. Now, this image of me in particular is a self-portrait . . . which I guess isn’t exactly the point. My point is, in order to adequately preserve your memories, you need to actually get YOURSELF in some of the pictures you take. If you’re the one in the family who is taking all of the pictures, then you know how it is: you spend 12 hours at Disneyland and you look at the pictures and it doesn’t even look as if you were there. Your spouse and your kids are in all of the pictures, but where are YOU?

So, I always try, no matter what the event, to either take a picture of myself or have someone take a picture of us as a family or me with the kids. I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking that I didn’t do things with them because I’m not in the pictures, when really I was the one taking the pictures all along. So, at your next family gathering or on your next outing, hand the camera to someone else for a change.

Also, I try to document how I’ve looked at different stages of my life. Throughout both of my pregnancies, I have hired professional photographers to take beautiful pictures of me and my belly at different trimesters. My thought was that my belly was never, ever going to look like that again, and I wanted to remember it. Some people commented to me that they didn’t let anyone near them with a camera when they were pregnant . . . but really, it’s such a joyous time. No, I wasn’t going to go around parading in a bikini (scary), but having my photographs done was important and memorable. I cherish all of those pictures — even if I do look rather . . . ahem . . . large in them. haha!

I also try to have some photographs done of me at certain ages or with certain hairstyles or when I’m feeling good about myself or just whenever. With this one, I was just really loving my new hairstyle (thank you, Natasha!). It’s kind of funny, too, because I didn’t realize how many freckles I had. They always pop out in the summertime with the sun, but wow. That’s freckle overload.

I think you get the idea. Self portraits are particularly difficult to pull off, but if your arms are long enough or your lens is short enough or if you have a tripod lying around, try it some time.

Why do I sense a self-portrait photo contest coming on? Hmmmm . . . I may have to put something together!

-shawna K