On July 8th, I was back at Los Willows in Fallbrook for the second time in two months to photograph the wedding of Vi Ly and Steven Aranda. It was way back on October 16th of last year that I photographed Vi and Steven’s Engagement Portrait session at Laguna Beach behind the Montage Resort and Spa. Vi likes to plan ahead!
Los Willows has quickly become one of my top three local venues to photograph weddings. No only is there a large variety of picturesque locations on the property to use as backdrops for formal and romantic portraits, but the staff there are incredible to work with — led by the incomparable site coordinator, Kendra Koenig.
In order to get as much of the formal portraits out of the way prior to the ceremony, Vi and Steven elected to do a “First Look”, in which we had her cross a wooded bridge to sneak up behind her husband-to-be, Steven. They were both choked up a bit when they first saw each other. And, it’s probably a good thing that they did get that out of the way early, as when the ceremony itself started, Vi was looking more than a bit nervous. From the moment she and her father crossed the lake in the Los Willows boat, she could be seen catching the occasional deep breath.
The ceremony was very short and sweet, and presided over by Steven’s father, who had gotten ordained online just for the occasion. We’ve seen a lot of this trend lately — having a family member or special friend get ordained (usually online) to be able to legally marry the couple. We (Rachel and myself) did this same thing for our own wedding, having a long-time friend of mine ordained for free online (at http://www.themonastery.org). This added a very personal touch to Vi and Steven’s wedding, and Steven’s father commented during the ceremony how honored he felt to have been asked to do this for them. Very cool!
Live music for the event was provided by Mike and Brian Productions, featuring Brian Stodart on keyboards, guitar, and vocals, and his sidekick Mike on percussion. They were awesome! I have worked many events with Brian before (some with Mike and some solo), and he is the best!
Here are the highlights of the day. Click the “Leave A Comment” link below to let us know your thoughts on this post.
On October 16th, I was at my most popular beach location for photographing engagement portraits — Laguna Beach, just behind the Montage Resort. On this occasion, the happy engaged couple in front of my lens was Vi Ly and her fiance, Steven Aranda.
Vi and Steven are doing a great job of planning ahead, as their wedding is not until next July 8th (at Los Willows in Fallbrook). They just came into our studio today to view the images from their session and select the image they wanted to use for the mounted 16×24 metallic print that they will be displaying at the wedding. There were so many shots that they loved, it took them awhile to narrow it down to just one. I like it when my couples have trouble selecting just one favorite!
Here are some of my own favorites from their session…
