It was a shock and a delight when I found my old classmate, from Aptos Jr. and Aptos High at the wedding expo at the cocoanut grove two years ago! I couldn't believe she'd just walked up to my booth, and it was even more fun when she chose me to shoot her wedding! It was fun getting back in touch with Marie, but also, getting to meet Julio and hear their story. It's hard to imagine a more romantic story; meeting in Paris during separate study abroad programs, getting proposed to in Paris, as well, and the way they celebrated their two cultures; French and Mexican, and voe them into every well-thought out detail, throughout the wedding day.
So not only can they claim one of the more romantic falling in love stories, but they're just adorable together; very much in love, and so sweet with one another; a total balance. All of this was celebrated (with many flying in from out of the country, from as far away as Paris!), at the historically beautiful Mission San Juan Bautista (of which, if you grew up around here, you've done at least one, if not many more, field trips to, in your life). It was so incredible to get to shoot as this amazing old mission. The color and the light in the buildings was gorgeous, and we had a lot of fun shooting Marie in different old buildings and on the grounds.
It was a beautiful day, and I was so glad to not only get back in touch with Marie (despite us both being crazy-busy with our respective lives), but to be asked to shoot their wedding. I'm thrilled with the way the shots turned out, and so I created a slideshow. There are some fun cultural details in the shots, (in the slideshow and below) that I'll tell you about. In both the French and Mexican culture, it's traditional to process from the ceremony site to the reception site, which Marie and Julio added into the days festivities, and which was a great way to involve the guests from the get-go, as they paraded, behind mariachi from the mission to the reception hall nearby. (There's a shot of the processional beginning directly above).
My lovely and super-talented, Auntie Susi did the flowers, click for the link to go to Susi's Flowers, (check out the shot below of the lily of the valley bouquet, which I lusted after, and probably took about 3 different pictures of)...and the videographer was Jake McLelan, (our families grew up together,so we knew each other ages ago, and have recently had a couple of the same brides and grooms. His site is here, if you're looking for a videographer, he's just started his own company, and his a really good eye.
Below are some of my favorite shots (it was hard to narrow it down to a few), and if you want to see a broader overview of the day, check out the slideshow, which can be found by clicking here!! More of my favorite shots, after the jump (it was next to impossible to even narrow down favorites, I had SO many)...give the slideshow a while to load, there are a lot of pictures in the slideshow. There's a status bar that should show you how far it's loaded, and I have it set to not play til the entire slideshow is downloaded, so be patient. If you have a slower connect, in the lower right-hand corner there's a button that you can click on for lower-bandwidth connections. As always, all the photos are clickable, to view them larger, and to view the rest of my favorites, click on, "Continue reading..." below.
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