san francisco wedding photographer Archives

Berkeley City Club Wedding

Berkeley City Club Wedding – Jenni & Andy

Jenni & Andy were married on a sunny day in late December at the Berkeley City Club, a hidden gem of a wedding venue, right next to the Cal campus. Genius architect, Julia Morgan, was at her finest when she designed this “castle in the city.”

As the sun was setting, wedding guests gathered on a generous balcony. The chuppah holders processed. Jenni and Andy’s puppy was led down the aisle by Jenni’s niece. A pair of friends/co-officiants effortlessly wove diverse rituals into the ceremony. Highlights included: the signing of a gorgeous, colorful ketubah depicting, among other things, the Golden Gate Bridge, and their frolicking puppy; a musical performance with Andy on trombone, a friend on sax, and Jenni, with a chorus of friends, on vocals. They smashed a glass, smooched, and headed into the library for cocktail hour, where a full jazz band serenaded guests.

The vision for the wedding reception was crystal clear: “dinner & a show,” oh, and a hora, of course. (Important life rule, never pass up a chance to dance the hora.) Andy’s parents kicked off the show portion of the evening with a riotous slideshow romp through Jenni & Andy’s childhoods. There were traditional toasts, a family band, experimental music, pop covers, a jazz set with Andy and band. Such a lovely full evening!

Dog looking at wedding cake with desire. Documentary Wedding Photography Hazel Photo Bay Area

“Documentary wedding photography” 7 reasons why this is what you really want.

An emotional first look at a wedding. The groom wipes a tear away. Documentary wedding photography.

You care deeply what it actually felt like to be at your wedding, and so you want wedding photos that convey that feeling. The goal in “documentary wedding photography” is to make images that make you feel what it was like to be at your wedding years after the fact.

Boy in suit and suspenders hugging his daddy's leg at a wedding. Documentary Wedding Photography

2. You want a photo of your best friend doing the worm, of your mom teasing her sister, of your dad hugging you with tears in his eyes, of your niece with that look like she’s plotting world takeover. These are the moments a documentary wedding photographer sees, and immortalizes.

A groom held aloft his cousins' shoulders during a baraat. Documentary Wedding Photography Hazel Photo

3. You want a photographer who has a keen eye for the meaningful gestures, expressions, and details that tell the larger story. A documentary wedding photographer spends years honing the ability to see the unexpected, to frame things just right, so the viewer is compelled by the photograph, and understands the scene.

a little girl in a white dress with a white basket and a bright pink troll, sticking her tongue out and observing it all on a wedding day. Documentary wedding photography.

4. You don’t want your photographer to tell you to have a second first look. One is overwhelmingly wonderful. Also, hold on a sec, how in the world can you have a second first look? This speaks to the authentic manner in which documentary wedding photographers work.

a groom and his father share a hug at the hotel before heading over to the church for the wedding. Documentary wedding photography

5. You want pictures that make you feel seen. A documentary wedding photographer can make photographs that compliment the principles that guided you when you were planning your wedding. (whether you sat down and wrote out official guidelines with your fiancé, or you just have a general sense of what you were about during the planning.) Unfortunately some wedding photography doesn’t see you for who you are, and ends up being more a photographer’s idea of what a “romantic wedding” should look like.

a Bride reading a letter from her groom before the wedding surrounded by bridesmaids and mom. Documentary wedding photography

6. You don’t want a photography company that takes over with multiple cameras, and blocks your guests’ view, and makes it feel like a photoshoot, not like an authentic event. In “documentary wedding photography” the goal is to let the wedding be what it is, rather than to step in and change it.

7. You like the color of your dress and the florals you chose, and you want them to be true to life in the pictures. The style of a documentary wedding photographer can be carried into processing images after the wedding day with the goal of reproducing beautiful faithful color. Some wedding photography is significantly altered in processing, whether that be desaturation, color grading, or excessive retouching.

Bay Area Documentary Wedding Photographer Hazelphoto

Moments that matter – a year in weddings

Here we have a year of weddings as seen through “moments.”

2018 brought a lovely diversity of venues throughout the Bay Area and beyond, including the Sierra Mountains, Big-Sur, The Boston T and the Boston Public Library, Art Museums, Tiny Chapels and Massive Urban High Schools, Small High Schools and Redwood Theaters, a Mansion that once belonged to a general…

I feel overwhelming gratefulness for all the joy and ritual that I experienced through a camera lens this past year.

But why “moments”? Because they draw us in through their storytelling power. They make us feel what exists on either side of them. They don’t just show a gorgeous dress. They show a woman in a gorgeous dress flushed with joy as she dances with her father. Her gesture shows the freedom and the fun she has shared with him. They don’t just show a marriage license sitting upon a table. They show a group hug between a bride, a groom, her sister, his brother, and the closest of friends, the marriage license gripped between the groom’s fingers.

A photograph is time frozen. Sure, etymologically speaking, it is a light-drawing…but maybe we should have called it a nontempograph… because it’s conceptual implications are: it takes something that exists in the spatiotemporal world, and strips it of time, leaving it to a solely spatial existence. It is of time and yet out of time. A spatial representation of time at a standstill.

And in it’s spatial existence, it can only hint at temporality. It is those photographs that gesture grandly toward temporality that move me most.

Here’s to a 2019 of making wedding photographs that gesture grandly toward temporality.

Classic Church and Topsail Tent Wedding – Jocelyn and Tom

The story of how it came to be that I photographed Jocelyn and Tom’s wedding is on the complicated side of things. Jocelyn reached out to see if I was available to photograph her wedding on the Sunday of Memorial Day. She is an incredible storyteller, and went into detail in her initial query about the history of her grandma and grandpa’s house where the reception would be held. The house actually had it’s 300th birthday this year. There was a fabled apple tree, apple pies, peach jam, and a grapevine Robert Frost had written a poem about. Jocelyn and Tom were high school sweethearts at Exeter where they both rowed on the crew team. Very sad for me! I was booked Sunday, but I was available Saturday, so I cheekily suggested they change the date of the wedding to Saturday.

By mere chance, or some celestial tinkering, Jocelyn and Tom changed their wedding date to Saturday, and booked me as their photographer! I anticipated the wedding with excitement all year long, and when it finally came to pass, it did not disappoint.

The wedding was a classic. It started in the Exeter church, and ended with joyous dancing under a topsail tent. The thing that struck me most about their wedding was how right it felt. They were surrounded by family and friends who could see with great clarity how happy Jocelyn and Tom made each other and what an incredible match the two made. Each, in their own right, is a force to be reckoned with, but together, they are indomitable. Woe to anyone who should impede their path. They had their first look on a worn marble staircase at Phillips Exeter Academy where they had first met and forged their connection. I made couples portraits of the two down at the Exeter Boathouse, the site of their first date! I could go on and on about the wonders of their wedding… Thank you again for being so lovely to work with, Jocelyn and Tom.

Many many thanks to the talented Cara Brostrom for coming on as a 2nd photographer.

Sitting Bride Groom Portrait San Francisco Wedding Photographer

Bride’s Dress: Amsale from The White Gown

Groom’s suit: Custom made by the Black Lapel

Florist: Cymbidium Floral

DJ and/or band: DJ Jodi Entertainment

Catering: Stone Oven Catering and Las Olas

Invitations: Crane & Co

Big Sur Wedding Photographer

This was my first time photographing a wedding in Big Sur, and the landscape did not disappoint. There are reasons to get married in a setting as beautiful as the Wind and Sea Estate. You need less decor! Just look how the landscape and the light change color as the day proceeds. That’s California for you. Honestly, Big Sur is kind of a wedding photographer’s dream.

Jess and Nick had an intimate wedding with just 20 guests at the gorgeous Wind and Sea Estate in Big Sur, California. I definitely got to know the guests a bit better than I do when photographing a wedding with over 100 guests, and I am grateful for this, because across the board Jess and Nick’s people were delightful human beings. This was unsurprising really, as they are two of the warmest people I have ever had the pleasure of photographing. That warmth was on their faces all day long, and a week later when I saw them again, they were still glowing from deep within.

Late into the night, after Jess & Nick had, surfed, and showered, and donned spiffy spiffy togs, and processed through verdant hills, and spoke their vows, and kissed at a seaside altar (not once, but whenever the spirit moved them, like champs, like people who know exactly what they want) and after they read Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece to their guests, after they were showered again, this time with lavender confetti, and after they dined, and danced, and were showered again, but this time with the words of their eloquent friends and family, they had a bonfire, and listened to the sea, and it grew dark.

Big Sur Wedding Photographer Wind and Sea Resort

Big Sur Wedding Photographer Wind and Sea Estate

Wedding attire: Jill Stuart/BHLDN

Florist: We are gonna buy a bunch of succulents

Wedding planner: Sea and Stars Catering, Jamie

Hair: Kim Larson

Makeup: Kim Larson

DJ and/or band: Spotify Playlist

Videographer: none

Cake: Sea and Stars (Pies, cookies and s’mores by a fire pit)

Catering: Sea and Stars Catering

Invitations: paperlesspost

San Francisco Marriage Proposal Photographer

San Francisco Marriage Proposal Photographer – SF MOMA

Kevin found me on yelp, figure that. He told me that he lived with his girlfriend, Maggie, down in San Diego and that they were planning a trip up to San Francisco, and it was going to be quite a trip, because he was hoping they would be engaged on the return flight. We made a master marriage proposal plan to be carried out at the spectacular Battery Godfrey. I sent him a video of exactly where he would stand in front of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge… point there, tap here, kneel there… every detail of the marriage proposal was planned out except for the rain (I hear it doesn’t do that in San Diego.) So it definitely rained. We made a backup master marriage proposal plan at San Francisco City Hall, and Kevin executed it perfectly. I have to say it’s thrilling every time I get to photograph a marriage proposal, and these two were about the nicest giddiest folks you could hope to spend a rainy afternoon photographing. After the proposal at San Francisco City Hall we headed over to SF MOMA for a few more deliriously happy photographs.

marriage proposal photographer san francisco bay area

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