Napa & San Francisco Wedding Photography Blog

@heathersharpe hang in there heather # 3 hours ago

Will you be at Wanderlust Festival?

July 29th, 2010

Will you be at the Wanderlust Festival in Squaw Valley with us? Starting on Thursday in Squaw Valley and running until Sunday, the Wanderlust Festival combines a great line up of music and yoga to fill the days and nights. Guess which photographers lucked out? We are excited to be officially photographing the Wanderlust Festival with an all access pass which means we will be sure to capture some great artists, moments and photographs to share with you on the blog!

We are most looking forward to the Midnight Mass Twister on Saturday night. Wish a great line up of music and yoga, there is sure to be a great activity for everyone involved. And what could be a more perfect backdrop than Squaw Valley right in the heart of Tahoe? Be sure to check the music line up but Moby, Bassnectar, Brazilian Girls and Yard Dogs Road Show are among the great list of artists set to be there. Can’t wait to be photographing them!

Just the same, the yoga line up is out of this world and includes Shiva Rea, Baron Baptiste and Seane Corn. We are looking forward to seeing the best Yoga teachers and photographing the yoga classes. I’m also looking forward to meeting some great people at the Wellness Village. This is what the Wanderlust website says:

Welcome to the Wanderlust Wellness Village, offering healing services from some of the most talented practitioners in California and beyond. Every one of these “Healers” (because healing truly occurs from within) is devoted to supporting your unique journey, and enhancing your Wanderlust experience from the inside out. Melt your tissues, find relief for that pain that won’t seem to go away, or simply find respite in the nectarian surrender offered by healing hands, and return to the yoga mat (or dance floor) refreshed and enlivened! We are honored to be of service.

It’s not too late to purchase tickets and head up for the weekend either! With great food, great wine, fire sculptures, a base camp, yogis posing on suspended lines, a play lounge, the Wanderlust village, acroyoga, meditation, lectures and two music stages, this is surely not an event to be missed especially when 1 day music only tickets are under $30 per person! Wanderlust even has a special kids camp experience so that you can include your little ones in the act!

wanderlust festival of music and yoga at squaw valley, tahoe

We hope to see you there! It’s going to be one hell of a spiritual, physical and musical journey for us this weekend! Keep your eyes glued to the blog for photos!

P.s: I hear the weather is set to be incredible as well!

diane - awesome! i am jealous.... wish i could go, have fun!

Kelly + Dani – Gay Wedding Photographer

July 28th, 2010

So here it is, the second post of Kelly and Dani’s gay wedding photos from Highland Ranch in Philo. We left out some really amazing ‘First Glance’ photos and some really cute detail one that we thought you guys would love to check out. Backyard weddings are always so nice and laid back, there’s a homey feeling to them. And they are always so filled with cute little details!

This has got to be my absolute favorite photo of the beautiful couple. Love the emotion and beauty!

Isn’t that such a cute photo of Kelly and Dani on the right? That was right after their first glance! It’s like a little family portrait with Trout with the gorgeous blue skies. : ) Look how cute Trout is following his owners around like a little shadow.

Detail photos of a dog and horse at a backyard wedding

Love, love, love the greenish mold walls of the horse barn in the background. What a nice contrast to the purple dresses! Kelly and Dani look so cute together, don’t you think?

Another beautiful aspect of a backyard ranch wedding – horses and nature! So great!

All the green trees of this backyard wedding makes it such a gorgeous backdrop! And even Trout came along everywhere with us! Who would want to leave him behind anyways? Can you say no to those eyes?

It makes us happy when two people are going with what their hearts tell them to do and not what society wants them to do, especially when you are this happy… who would want to listen to society anyways?

I love this set of two photos of Kelly and Dani, such sweet intimacy! Kelly, you look so gorgeous!

Cute hammock photographs in the backyard! A little quiet moment before the ceremony.

Now here are the details for a real backyard wedding, most of them were not set-up, but already at the ranch. These cute little examples of rustic decor made us feel like we went back in time. A complete visual feast for the eyes. What I love most were the cute peppercorn bouquet details that decorated the ceremony!

How awesome is this? Clay Shooting! All the guys were lined up to try this activity.

$backyard wildflowers and ceremony \ photo$

It’s so sweet that Kelly and Dani chose Kelly’s sister to be their officiant. We always love it when our couples make important choices for their big day!

Their wedding dresses were so beautiful, I just love how they wore reverse colors and even their bouquets were opposite colors.

Kelly and Dani’s wedding included a handfasting ceremony. Traditional handfasting wedding ceremonies are Celtic wedding rituals. It involves the tying of hands together to symbolize the coming together and remaing tied together.

How Cute, Kelly even did the ‘leg pop.’

Oh my goodness, the cake and catering was so delicious. It was made for Kelly and Dani by their pastry chef friend. It was a yummy flourless cake. Making you hungry yet?

5/23/10

What a wonderful day it surely was. Full of happiness and romance.

The whole weekend was full of fun. Thanks so much Kelly and Dani for including us! : )

Hi-Fi Weddings - oooooh my wow!!! SO LOVELY! they are lovely! ranch is lovely! wedding is lovely! photos are lovely! all of it - stunning! if they would like to share music that might have been played during the day, then i'd love to feature this on hi-fi weddings :)

Kelli + Dani – Gay Wedding Photographer

July 27th, 2010

We just couldn’t wait to post photos from this beautiful gay wedding, at Highland Ranch. Kelli and Dani had a very fun and intimate gay wedding, it was fit into a weekend retreat for their closest family and friends. What made it more awesome for us was that they had a very sweet first glance and did their portraits before the wedding ceremony took please. We love first glances; the couple got to see each-other before the ceremony and spend a very private and intimate portrait session time with each other. This part of the portrait session usually is very a emotional tear jerker. Dani and Kelly completely expressed their love and compassion for one another. We absolutely loved their wedding dresses, especially how they wore reverse colors, so perfect!

We were so honored that Kelly and Dani chose us to document their beautiful commitment ceremony. We are so deeply touched when two people truly in love decide to honor and seal their love and commitment for each other despite being the same sex and going ahead against normal conventions. We always in awe when a lesbian and gay couple decide to declare their undying and eternal love to each other and make the commitment despite the California marriage laws. And we are even more honored when the couple chooses us to be their wedding photographer. To document a gay or lesbian wedding is truly a special thing for us and something we really enjoy doing. Did you see our last same sex wedding photographs?

Their happy little doggy, Trout, was caught snoozing just before the first glance and ceremony. Guess he just had to get a few Z’s in before his owners’ big ceremony. Also, he might be tired from all the excitement leading up to the big day. We let him sleep for a bit, but then we just couldn’t leave him back for the portraits, he managed to get the energy to follow us around.

Bright colors and Fluevog shoes always make our day!

How special, for decor there were fresh picked wildflowers in little jars.

The events before the wedding even made us jealous that we didn’t join in. They had Clay Shooting and Horse-Back Riding, they even offered a nature walk and canoeing in the lake. There were also Yoga classes to attend all weekend, which I’m sure sparked interest in all the nature loving guests.

Kelly’s sister, also the officiant during their ceremony did a wonderful display of fire dancing toward the end of the reception. It was an amazing show, how brave she has to be to be swinging live fireballs that close to her body. I know all the reception guests were in awe.

This wedding had so many details and happenings that we just couldn’t fit it all into one post. We will be posting the rest of Kelly and Dani’s wedding soon!

Backyard Wedding Photographs - [...] here it is, the second post of Kelly and Dani’s gay wedding photos from Highland Ranch in Philo. We left out some really amazing ‘First Glance’ photos and [...]

Winny + Lee – San Francisco Engagement – Featured – San Francisco Engagement Photographer

July 26th, 2010

Thank you so much Lou, for featuring this cute engagement session on Whimsical Wonderland Weddings. It fit in just perfectly with the precious little pup Paddington and the adorable heart balloon prop.

Winny + Lee – San Francisco Engagement Photos

July 23rd, 2010

Oh, Winny and Lee, how we love your San Francisco engagement photos! San Francisco does give the perfect backdrop for a wonderful engagement session. Remember the sneak peek photo from their San Francisco engagement session? Winny and Lee (and their cute little dog, Paddington) took us on a fun trip through the city’s most gorgeous places. First we were at Coit Tower, a 210 ft. tower in Pioneer Park. This was where the sweet couple had their first date, which then led to the love they have for each other now, and it shines throughout this entire engagement session. Then, we headed to North Beach, where Paddington had the freedom to get some energy running through the grass. Also, the colors in these shots were just gorgeous.

Look how comfortable they look with each other, they are so sweet and a perfect couple. Winny is so shy we had to work her into the photo session just to look at the camera, but thats okay, cause once she started smiling we couldn’t stop her. And why would we ever want to? She has such a pretty smile, and Lee’s smile isn’t to bad either ; ) After North Beach we headed to Golden Gate Park, one of Winny and Lee’s favorite places to wrap up the photo session.

Can you read the graffiti words? We sure couldn’t either. But, the mural was perfect for a couple urban love photos, don’t you think? We definitely admired the artwork, but it still couldn’t compare to the magic of love that was in the air today. With Winny and Lee finally getting comfortable for the engagement session, we decided to step it up a notch and throw in an inflatable heart in the next few photos.

Cute, cute, cute, is the couple fighting over the inflatable heart in the middle of a grassy field. All Lee had to do was hold his hand out and the heart over his head and it was too much for Winny, she was laughing uncontrollably the entire time. Paddington was so patient with us the entire session, he even paid attention for almost all the closeups. How lucky are they to have such a well behaved pup, jealous! Maybe we will dog-nap him, watch out Winny and Lee, were after your pup. : ) We can’t wait to see how fun their wedding will be, can you?

Ricky Malana - Awesome you two! Congrats! Take care and see you both on the big day :)

$The Bride\'s Cafe Featured Vendor$