I LOVE Canadians!  And destination weddings!   Canadians on Destination Weddings??  Can’t beat it.  Kate + Shaun are two amazingly gorgeous and genuinely nice people and I honestly can say that I can shoot them all day long.

I met them personally the day before the wedding and we hit it off very quickly and felt like best friends without knowing anything about each other.  But we share a couple of things: the love of togetherness and the love of good photography.  Kate is the second of two sisters, and Shaun is the middle one of a set of triplets (I’m so glad that they don’t look all alike, because I’ll be really having some trouble during the wedding day! :).  Both were born in Canada, but Kate’s family moved to Roswell, NM and then she went back to Vancouver to pursue her studies as a communications major.  Shaun on the other hand went to the Netherlands before long he moved to California.  They finally met through a mutual friend, who interestingly is marrying Shaun’s brother!  I’m always amazed with how people meet each other, especially when they live so far apart for most of their lives.

The wedding day was a gorgeous day with perfect weather.  Held at the amazing Olowalu Plantation house, we had the luxury of having the whole wedding celebration outdoors, basking in the fresh breeze of the beach nearby.  They have a smaller-intimate wedding where all their family friends travel pretty much all around the world to be around them.  I can honestly say that the whole party was so nice, I felt like a part of their circle immediately.  This really made my job a lot easier and a lot of fun.  The day started with Shaun going surfing in the morning (love this!!) and Kate doing the more serious prepping and getting ready with the girls and the moms.  They all finally converge at the Olowalu Plantation House, where all the beauty, goodness, love, and drinking collides :)  After the long 12-hr wedding, we got invited to party up with them at a nearby bar (that apparently is the only one that is still open at that time) and had amazing chats, laughs, over drinks.

The Details:
Getting Ready location: Puamana Resort
Ceremony + Reception location: Olowalu Plantation House
Wedding Coordinator: Stacey Jones of White Orchid Weddings
Bride’s Dress Designer:  Watters Bridal, Vancouver
Bride & Bridesmaids’ Hair and Makeup: Heavenly Spa, Westin Resort, Maui

A very special thanks to Brandon Wong for second shooting with me and providing me with incredible images.

Now on to the images!

Kate & gang’s getting ready

Prior to getting to Kate’s getting ready location, I had some time to shoot where Shaun was staying and found him writing his vows

A sweet private moment between Kate & her dad, right before the ceremony.

My whole thought process during this wedding was to capture moments and I decided to do something a bit different with my portraits, instead of creating something cool I tried to go back to basics and focus on the simplicity of beauty itself:

A hilarious moment during the start of the speeches – Kate’s sister lugging around this toilet paper roll the whole day because she was anticipating lots of crying.  In reality, she was correct.

Slideshow

And I love this moment by Kate’s mom as she watched the slideshow.

The first dance

I knew Wendy + Brandon a couple of years ago when they volunteered to model for one of our private workshop. We hit it off nicely and fast forward to April, they’re getting hitched! This couple is super-stylish and all kinds of amazing with DIY projects. They put together their invitation as well as the centerpieces, which was no small feat since they had 300 guests attending their wedding! And Wendy made her own veil started with the floral piece she bought from Etsy.

We had a perfect day in Diamond Bar for a wedding and it started with the tea ceremony, followed by the western ceremony where both the bride and groom read their vows from their iPhones. Wendy was breathtaking in her Lazaro dress and Louboutins shoes and Brandon in his Paul Smith tux.

During the reception, Wendy changed into her custom-made Ao Dai, a traditional Vietnamese costume, for the table toasts. And the guests danced their 10-course meal away to end the night. Special thanks to Dexter Lo for second shooting with me.

Coordinator: Kelly Duprat
Cake: Patty’s Cake
Flowers: Petals by Mary
Makeup & hair: Gordon Banh
Officiant: Elysia Skye
Favors: Amber Yin

Love this shot from their first look embrace!

I had the pleasure of shooting the engagement session for these two fine people (I’m so blessed that I have the opportunity to get such nice people as clients!).  We had some awesome time throughout the session, despite the cold winds.  Their wedding is coming up in about 2.5 weeks, so watch for that post as well! :)  Star + Amir, can’t wait to shoot your wedding!

I love weddings that started with the getting ready at their houses. You can learn so much about people from what their house looks like.

I met Grace + Nate at our initial consultation at a gastropub in downtown Orange and hit it off talking about anything and everything (I never thought I was such a talker). I learned about supposedly how good Costco Tequila is and about Cassoulet from Nate, and talked about the beauty of stories with Grace. One thing that I think was kind of interesting is that they always say that they have nothing in common with each other, however even in the phone conversation leading into the meeting, I already felt that they are a great match. They have this quirkiness about them that I believe drew them together. They are cute together. I love funny people, and these people are definitely funny with their zings toward each other.
Here are some excerpts of what they wrote about each other in their wedding website:

What Nate said about Grace:
“Grace is a good and patient teacher of pronunciation. Even though English is not her native language (as it is for Nate), Grace has transformed Nate’s pronunciation of English words into something socially acceptable. Some words that Grace has taught Nate to pronounce:
Worcester sauce, banal, Kroger’s Supermarket, H.E.B. Supermarket, nihilistic, often, Chick-fil-A, bilirubin, Boston Celtics, disparate, Montrose, ease, atrophied (just like how Morpheus from Matrix pronounced it), Maraschino cherries.”

What Grace said about Nate:
PAST:
“Nathan K. Watanabe spent his childhood in the City of Orange, a sun-drenched and cloud-capped cradle of homespun conservatism and flourishing family values. Growing up, Nate loved bumblebees, his little sister, dinosaurs, and bio-mechanical engineering.
As Nate encountered new experiences and landscapes in college, particularly during a study abroad program in Kyoto, epiphanies cascaded for him. Accordingly, Nate enrolled in law school, where he savored the mental gymnastics of lawyering and the salmon he cooked between classes.”
PRESENT:
“Nate is like a pluot, a resolutely colorful hybrid. He has the explosive athleticism of a gym rat but the waggish gluttony of a guinea pig. He works as a transactional lawyer by day but plays like a goof ball at night. Nate is both ardent friend and fearsome (Monopoly) foe. Aside from pluots, our pal Nate loves to eat pickles, “crunchies,” whole pigs, the honeyed cuisine of Japan, and blueberries.”
FUTURE:
“To Nate, the love and laughter of family, friends, and God are necessary components for the The Good Life.”

So I traveled to Las Vegas to shoot their wedding and I got invited to their pre-wedding party by Nate at a local bar in downtown Las Vegas and got to know some of his closest friends and had a few to drink (I didn’t see Grace at all that day since she was doing some secretive activities with her bridesmaids. Just kidding). The wedding day comes and I started with Grace’s getting ready at her parents’ house that she grew up in. I was in awe of all the awards that she has received throughout the years. There are numerous photos with past presidents, placards after placards of achievement awards on the walls. Simply, impressive. Her parents have definitely raised a good and accomplished kid.

The wedding: fun. It was a low-key friends and family centric with the nice backdrop of the cool architecture of the World Market Center. It was cold and windy, but both Grace and Nate was open to shooting anywhere and anytime. Love that about them. They had one of the most amazing Ethiopian food served in the reception (judging from Nate’s culinary knowledge, I am not surprised).

Special thanks to Juliet from Green Orchid Events for being so awesome, and making the event so smooth and fluid, and to Ari Simphoukham for second shooting for me.

The Details:
Wedding Venue: World Market Center, Las Vegas
Wedding Coordinator: Juliet Douglas of Green Orchid Events
Catering: Renaissance Catering
Florist: Enchanted Florist

Grace being made up in one room and her mom in the other.

In the mean time, Nate finishing up getting ready at his hotel room

Back in Grace’s house, the aunties are making the special traditional chinese soup.

A beautiful moment right after the Tea Ceremony of Grace’s mom tearing up while her dad is raising her veil (taken by Ari)

Cute moment during the bus ride to the venue

The cool details of the ceremony.

Grace and her dad walking down the aisle

I love this hug by Grace’s dad right after the speech

First dance, 26 floors up from the ground, overlooking Las Vegas

In the other room some people are doing some karaoke!

The double decker bus to transport the guests as they leave from the premises

Another wedding featured in the Style Me Pretty Little Black Book Blog!  This one is from Ann + Ted‘s beautiful wedding at The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.  Click the image to read the whole article!