by 1000 Words Photography
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Santa Cruz Wedding
This is a wedding for a couple whose engagement session we did just a few weeks ago, Sarah & Jason. Their wedding venue was the
Sequoia Retreat Center in Santa Cruz. The wedding took place on the same weekend as the
Gilroy Garlic Festival , so just like last year we got stuck in bumper to bumper gridlock for over an hour starting in Los Gatos. Fortunately we always giv e ourselves plenty of time just in case, so we wound up being only 15 minutes late...but a lot of people were late. This is a jewel of a place tucked away in the hills. The facility has several different cabins, which many of the wedding party stayed at the night before and the night of the wedding. This makes for a much more relaxed event as people don't have to worry about traveling to get home after the wedding.
The ceremony was held at a really nice grassy area at the end of facility. It is really beautiful as the grassy area is surrounded by giant redwoods. Just off the grassy area are trails that gave us some great opportunities. I really like the shot on this post of Sarah in the the wooded area...what do you think? It was great seeing Sarah's brother Brian and wife Elysia whose wedding we photographed in 2007.
The reception was held on a deck at the other end of the facility. It was a nice mild evening and very comfortable. All in all it was a beautiful wedding and we consider us lucky to have been chosed to capture the images.
Peace,
T&L
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Santa Cruz Wedding
by 1000 Words Photography
San Francisco is always the top choice for a couple's engagement session. There are so many beautiful places to go from The Palace of Fine Arts, Fort Point, Crissy Field, Golden Gate Park, The Legion of Honor, Baker Beach and so many more. We do a lot of engagement session in San Francisco for couples who come in to town with the sole purpose of having the city as their backdrop. Couples who are a lot of times getting married out of state will hire us just to photograph them in San Francisco. It can be a little chaotic sometimes, because there is always something going on in the city (a triathalon, a marathon, a parade, a demonstration). There have been times where we have planned with our couple to meet and there be absolutely no access to any of the places described above. In those times we've had to check off to another date. So it is always best to see if there is anything going on before putting it on the calendar.
This couple Lauren & Rob are getting married in Salt Lake City and wanted a San Francisco backdrop. We recommended The Palace of Fine Arts to them for a couple reasons. First it has stunning architecture built with the idea of a Roman ruin. It was built in 1915 for Panama-Pacific International Exposition and is awesome to see. The columns and arches give a wedding photographer a lot to work with. It also provides shelter from the wind.....nothing ruins an engagement session more that a bride to be's hair getting jacked by the wind. The second reason for suggesting The Palace of Fine Arts is that right across the street is Crissy Field, which has a great beach and a fabulous view of the Golden Gate Bridge (this day it was mostly fogged in). Lots of couples love to have the bridge in the background and the view doesn't get much better. Typically when we photograph at these locations we'll take the couple for a little stroll and run them through a bunch of sequences and it generally takes about an hour. If you check through our engagement gallery on our
website you'll see lots of instances of The Palace of Fine Arts. For this post we'll share a few of our favorites from a couple weeks ago....we hope you enjoy them.
Peace,
T&L
by 1000 Words Photography
by 1000 Words Photography
by 1000 Words Photography
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Wente Winery
Wente Winery is a beautiful venue for a San Francisco Bay Area Wedding. It is tucked away a little off Arroyo Rd in Livermore. Typically couples will have both their wedding and reception both at Wente. Getting ready is usually done upstairs in the bridal room, which for the most part is not anything too fancy. But there is a really cool window that makes for some very cool shots. There is a silhouette shot that we like to take with the bride in the window (see below). The window is also really cool because the bridesmaids a lot of times gather by the window to see the groomsmen arriving, which makes for a really nice candid shot.
The grounds are immaculate and make for usually some relatively easy shooting. There are several sets of winery doors that are fun to work with and the building is large enough that it tends to block the ceremony site from being in direct sun, keeping people from squinting and making exposures a lot easier for us as wedding photographers. Near the parking area are the vineyards, which are always fun to work in. We like to set the wedding rings on a vine for a nice detail shot (we like doing that instead of taking pictures of the couple's hands with the rings.....never quite been into that shot.
The reception room when all decorated is beautiful. For larger crowds it can provide a challenge getting around to get our shots, but the ceilings are not too tall so we are able to avoid direct flash on the subjects and bounce our strobes. The dancing and events are typically in the room adjacent to the dining room. We have done weddings where tables were set up outside and a tent is set up with hardwood floor for the dance floor. Wente is definitely one of our favorite venues to shoot. The staff is really organized, there are plenty of different backgrounds and advantageous lighting areas. We hope you like the pictures posted from our most recent wedding at Wente Winery.
Peace,
T&L
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Wente Winery
by 1000 Words Photography
Last weekend we had the chance to drive down to Santa Barbara to photograph Sara & Jason's engagement session. We had never been more south on Hwy 101 than Pasa Robles, what a beautiful drive. It is nothing like going down on 5 to the LA area. It is so lush and beautiful, and Santa Barbara itself it so nice. That is one of the nice things about being a wedding photographer, we get to go to some really cool places. The weekend before we were photographing a wedding in Lake Tahoe, this weekend brought us to Southern California. Sara & Jason were really nice and bought us lunch before starting the session. We were at a super nice location that had a nice wooded area and then a short hike away was the beach.....best of both worlds. Drove back home a little while after the session making for a long day....but a real fun experience.
1000 Words Photography had a great time shooting this engagement session. We hope you like the teasers.
Peace,
T&L
by 1000 Words Photography
Labels:
1000 Words Photography,
Garre Winery,
livermore weddings,
Northern California Weddings,
wedding photography
We recently had the great opportunity to photograph a wedding at Garre Winery in Livermore. Bethany and Dustin took some time off from school to tie the knot. We met Bethany in the bridal suite and started the getting ready process. Bethany was absolutely beautiful and so calm and relaxed. We had plenty of time to work with and the pace of the day was very relaxed.
The ceremony was held outside in front of the beautiful oak tree. The tree provides a beautiful backdrop to photograph. One really touching thing about this wedding was that their first kiss was really their first kiss.....that had to be hard, but it meant a lot to them.....so sweet.
The reception was in the pavillion and we saw something that we've never seen before.....as soon as Bethany and Dustin were introduced they went immediately into the cake cutting....we thought that was awesome to get an event out of the way right off the bat. In a rare treat the music was provided by a live band East Bay Mud. This band was very right on playing songs from the 60's, 70's and 80's and kept the energy level of the reception very high. The dance floor was full the whole night...and you don't always see that.
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1000 Words Photography,
Garre Winery,
livermore weddings,
Northern California Weddings,
wedding photography
by 1000 Words Photography
