Connie and Steven has a grand wedding reception in The Westin St Francis, San Francisco at Union Square a day after Christmas. They want an intimate wedding in the San Francisco City Hall on Christmas Eve. The huge Christmas tree before their ceremony on the Rotunda, right above the grand staircase, creates the most romantic and sensational background for their beautiful wedding I’ve seen in a while.

Because our package includes 4 hours of photography, this leaves ample time for us to drive down to the Legion of Honor for some romantic night photographs.

No wedding day is perfect. However, the beauty is that the imperfections make the wedding memorable and unique. See the Nestldown wedding photos in PR Web

“Rain on your wedding day is not the ideal for most couples; however, Michael managed to take the gloomy weather and turn it into some of the most amazing photos,” said Jennifer Hiatt, the bride.
Read more in San Francisco Chronicle

“True artists can create beauty from adversity. Capture the Love found the silver lining on our rainy day,” said Jasper Hiatt, the groom. “When you look at Michael’s photos, you feel the couple’s personality and energy. That’s what capturing the moment is all about.” Read more in Yahoo News

The original post with full photos from the October 30th’s outdoor wedding photos in Nestldown, Los Gatos can be found in our Rain on my wedding day blog posting.

What better way to enjoy good food and wine is to have them with great friends. An invitation to fine dining with Carol + Chris and Terel + Stacia is met by a surprisingly gorgeous home, a warm family and friends, Stroy + Laura and Danean + Brad.

How much fun can a few hours be? Watch and find out!

What’s more fun than shooting an engagement session and also the cinema,
all in the same day. It’s fun because it’s Napa and Calistoga, amidst the historic Chateau Montelena, Castello di Amorosa and Chimney Rock. Why fun? Why not? Good food, good wine, great friends/clients merging into a smooth collage of a wonderful day.

We are very blessed to be one of Yelp’s highest ranked photographer in the bay area. Yup, with approx. 50 FIVE STARS reviews, we feel loved. However, today came an email stating that we now have a negative FAT ONE STAR review in Yelp! A one-star what?!!

We’re breaking the mold ! Making history and causing chaos in the industry. People officially now hate us on Yelp!

- Michael Soo
Sad Photographer of the Year

Photographer Mike Goedde (pronounced as “geddy”) of Episode Photography interviewed numerous high end photographers for his wedding for months. His candidates include Wedding Photographer of the Year, Gene Higa, award winning, Salles Photography among others. Mike booked us immediately after meeting us at our studio. We were truly honored. It is flattering and quite a grand privilege when a phenomenal photographer wants us to photograph his/her very own wedding!!!

The expectations coming from a fellow photographer are usually huge. On the bright side, they will usually go above and beyond to collaborate for great imagery!

Here, the intellectual groomsmen study and plan in the library of Pine Inn, Carmel by the Sea to find the best spots for photography.

Pine Inn is mere minutes away from the wedding ceremony venue, Carmel Mission, aka San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo Mission. The mission is an absolute photography heaven. We could easily spend the whole day there, taking one breath-taking shot after another for the couple. Here are just a few of the photographs we shot in the short amount of time we we were there.

Alexa was resting in the vintage Chevy after the ceremony at Carmel Mission. I immediately noticed a transparent sticker on its window that says “Just Married” and the shadow falls upon her arm. How appropriate!

Alexa and Mike love to travel. Hence, the theme of the wedding revolves around cities across the world. A old world map was also printed as a mural-like setup on the reception in the St Andrew’s Banquet Hall in The Inn at the Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach.

Here are the rest of the images, one with them silhouetted against the fiery sunset, a real treat since the week leading to the wedding was sprinkled with rain. On the wedding day, the weather was perfect. The sunset surrounding the Inn at the Spanish Bay, Pebble Beach, spectacular. An impeccable way to start a new life together. Congratulations, Alexa and Mike!

What could be more disappointing than a wedding, one year in the making, to have it be rained upon? Brides tends to think that their wedding photos will look gloomy on a rainy day. On the contrary…

The weather forecast did state a 40% chance of precipitation on October 30th. In the history of this lushly landscaped private retreat, Nestldown of Los Gatos, it has not rained on October 30th in the past 20 years. So, we’re safe…or are we?

Well, it rained…and rained…and rained on October 30th. The outdoor ceremony had to be moved to the indoor barn. It was beautiful and we captured the wedding in ways that the bride was not expecting. The rain did stop for a few minutes for us to capture moments amidst the redwoods in Nestldown. Here are a few shots shot between the downpour,

And here are the rest of them!

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Just the name, Shakespeare Garden, conjures up thoughts of great love stories, and one immediately thinks of “Romeo and Juliet”. But in this particular wedding, we celebrate Bee and Eric’s love story. It’s cool that Romeo and Juliet met at the Capulet family party and all, but it’s really impressive how Bee and Eric met thousands of miles away from home, in another country! They both live in the Bay Area but happened to have made a trip around the same time, across the globe all the way to Thailand, and found each other.

Since Bee and Eric both enjoy nature, they chose to have their wedding ceremony at Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate Park, while opting for a traditional Asian banquet reception at the Grand Palace Restaurant in South San Francisco. The two locations vary greatly in terms of the background scenery. Our job, as photographers, is to think ahead about how to work with the different locations to capture the perfect wedding pictures, no matter what the backgrounds look like.

With its natural green scenery, and tucked away in a quiet area of Golden Gate park, Shakespeare Garden offered a great backdrop for photos. It features plants and flowers mentioned in the works of William Shakespeare and is designed with many elements of an English garden including arched brick walkways, flowering trees, and old-style benches, all of which are simply beautiful for picture-taking.

Grand Palace Restaurant, shown above, like many Chinese restaurants, presented us with some challenges. The restaurant had yellow walls and harsh yellow lighting which aren’t the most attractive for pictures. However, with our experience, we were still able to capture beautiful photos by working certain angles and using our own camera lighting. That’s what great photography is about – being able to work with whatever background you have and yet creating that special moment in pictures.

Between the two locations, we captured another special photo as well against a backdrop of the city. On the way from the garden ceremony to the reception, the bride needed a restroom and so we followed her as she wandered about in her heels and wedding dress. It’s a rare sight to see a bride on a city street and so we couldn’t resist snapping shots of her and her stylish BCBG shoes. “Who knew that walking to find a restroom could look so good!” exclaimed one of the bridesmaids. The city streets can provide an interesting background but often, it can look cluttered as well. It’s all about how you take the picture, but we have to agree, the bride looked awesome rocking her dress in her BCBG’s.

Dress by David’s Bridal
Bride’s shoes by BCBG
Bridesmaid dresses by BCBG
Bouquets and flower arrangements by Nicole Ha

Why do I say this is the Best Engagement Session in San Francisco? Perhaps this is one of the times when I am most relaxed, blessed to be a friend to my clients. That is also the time when we get the best images.

You see, this couple are not just any clients, they are now close friends of ours. We met them during our wedding consultation for their 2011 wedding. Jenny is an architect and Josh is an engineer. When we found out that Jenny is a meticulous architect, she soon became the architect who drew our photography studio addition! Check out a page (out of 17 pages) of her drawings for our permit submission toward our upcoming photography studio remodel!

Not only that, she wrote me a super sweet Yelp review after the session. I went all red when I read it. When it comes to photographing people who are so special, we go doubly above and beyond for them. Their wedding will be held in Hotel Valencia, Santana Row, San Jose. I’m looking forward to photographing their wedding!

We ended our shoot in a sea cave. A supremely exciting and fun-filled day. Here are a few of the images.

Josh, now he’s a cool looking guy. Look closely and you’ll realize that he resembles Edward, the main character in The Twilight Saga…

We recently photographed some pretty cool looking products and it made me think. Ok, not too hard but…

Ever wonder why women have so many purses? I figure that it might have all started back in the caveman days. You know, women were the gatherers and we men, were the handsome, daring, not to mention, hairy hunters. Ok, back to the gatherers. Well, the women had to collect berries and what other food they could find and you know all of that doesn’t fit into their hands. So came the invention of the purse – some cloth or fabric or other material to hold the food. But then they added colors and made the purses out of different materials and so came the invention of the designer purse! It’s a theory anyways. I think this evolved into a display of color to attract us men, you know, like how some birds attract others with cool unusual colors.

These days, women switch up their purses so much, one might worry that it could be a wasteful hobby. Well, worry no more. Wo Schiffman, founder of the new company Fibre Arts Design, created a line of bags that are made from recycled materials. Recycled purses that can eventually be recycled. That sounds really awesome. Well, you probably don’t want to recycle these though. They’re the latest trend and they’ve traveled to fashion shows in L.A, San Francisco, and are now on their way to Milan! Who wouldn’t want to keep these new bags! From my perspective as a photographer, the unique colors and fabrics definitely have caught my eye.

Her new line also includes bags for us men. For years we’ve pretended that we didn’t need purses, er, bags and we try to stuff the minimal into our wallet and into our back pocket. Sometimes it does get uncomfortable especially when you’re sitting down for a long time. Nowadays, we’ve got a lot of other gear like sports water bottles, cameras, etc. Besides, hasn’t it occurred to you that it might be dangerous for men to stick their keys in their front pocket? Guys, there is serious potential for injury here! Think about it! Besides I could use something to hold my extra camera gear. Maybe I should consider a man purse after all, er I mean a bag. You think that I could attract the opposite gender by sporting a cool new bag from Fibre Arts Design? Would women find me fashionable? Should I try?

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Makeup Artistry and Hair Styling by Tiffany Chiang of designHERimage