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My little sister and her hubby have been married for just over two and a half years (check out their wedding that I photographed HERE… it was my first wedding all to myself!). They came out from Virginia to visit in November, so we planned a little photo shoot. I adore the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and have wanted to do an engagement styled session up there for quite some time, so when I heard they were coming into town, I was excited to suggest pictures in Santa Cruz. The weather ended up being amazing that week (in the 80s, which is not typical for this time of year around here!) so we happily spent a couple of hours exploring the Boardwalk, pier, and beach. Here are my favorites…

Annie and Lance were married yesterday at the Oakland LDS temple and I was so excited to be a part of it!  I completely adored Annie’s vintage dress, worn by her own mother on her wedding day!  And the flowers were sooooo beautiful, too!  I second shot these for Maria Duncan photography.  Check out my favorites…

I could NOT get enough of her beautiful bouquet!

John & Whitney are such a fun couple… I honestly don’t think I’ve EVER laughed so hard while doing an engagement session!  We started out at a laundromat, of all places.  Yes, this was my idea… I first saw another photographer do an engagement session at a laundromat a few years back, when I was first getting into couples photography, and I’ve been dying to try it ever since!  So I was super excited that John & Whitney were in!  Then we headed over to this adorable strawberry stand, which also happened to have an awesome corn field and vineyard close by, so we set up a little vintage styled picnic and just had fun shooting until the sun went down!  Here are all my absolute favorites from their session… 

(Channeling The Notebook for this one!)

The past couple of days were beyond amazing!  I had the opportunity to attend a workshop hosted by the fabulous Tori Wible… she is so very, very sweet and put together a super fun and informative workshop.  I loved getting to know a whole bunch of other Northern California wedding photographers (and one from Washington!) and had a great time photographing two adorable couples.  Alex & Kamden are engaged and planning a fall wedding.  They ironically met at the exact venue where we photographed them for the workshop – the gorgeous Viaggio Winery in Lodi, CA.  The venue was unbelievably gorgeous with so many fun spots to take pictures… I would be thrilled to get a chance to shoot there again!  Here are a handful of favorites from day one…

Heather and Ben are such a sweet couple!  Heather is friends with my little sister and I was thrilled when she contacted me to take their engagement pictures.  I was even more excited when she told me they were happy to travel out to Monterey for the session and we decided on doing the pictures at the beatiful Carmel mission and then headed down to the beach for some sunset pictures.  The weather was absolutely beautiful, with plenty of sun shining, and I had a great time getting to know Heather and Ben a little better!

Maren and Sam were married at the Oakland LDS temple on a beautiful day in June.  They are such a sweet couple… SO in love!  And I had a great time photographing their big day. 

I arrived at the temple a bit early and was able to capture some images of the gorgeous temple grounds.  I know that most people wouldn’t think overcast weather is ideal, but for a photographer, I was thrilled that the harsh sun wasn’t out just yet!

The wedding party was so much fun!  These guys were cracking me up…

Maren looked gorrrrrrrgeous on her wedding day…

I was so happy we had some extra time before heading to the reception, so we drove down the street for some pictures at a different location, once the temple grounds became crowded…

Aren’t they adorable?!

And one last one of my favorite ring shot, taken at the reception!

My younger sister and her hubby came out to Monterey to spend Christmas with us, and when Kim asked if I would do pictures for her and Rob, I couldn’t resist!  They are so great in front of the camera and so in love.  We had a fun time shooting in downtown Carmel and then drove to Big Sur for beach shots.  We got to the beach just as the sun had gone down over the ocean, but that didn’t mean that we weren’t still going to shoot for a good twenty minutes!  The light was pretty anyway!  Here are a whole bunch of favorites…

Our family had the big bi-annual Ashby reunion this summer and when I saw the location, I just about gasped!  A private lake, all to ourselves, complete with two little islands in the middle of the lake.  When I saw the rowboat, I decided to ask my sister-in-law, Beth, if she and her hubby would be interested in ’letting me’ take pictures of them with it.  Doing a session on a lake with a row boat has been a long time dream of mine, so I wasn’t ready to pass up the opportunity!  They are SO adorable together, and we had an awesome time doing their session (luckily, I carefully cropped out my husband on the Sea Doo in the background! LOL!).  Here are a bunch of faves… 

I couldn’t decide if I liked this next picture in color or black and white.  So I posted both! 

Thanks, Beth & Brian, for being such willing and gorgeous participants!!

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