Mike and Alexia contacted me through the Knot and we booked the wedding over the phone. We photographed their engagement session at Sutro Heights above the baths at Ocean Beach in San Francisco a few months ago. When I found out their wedding details I was completely excited to be able to document their wedding. It seems the wedding was designed to be sweet, beautiful, tasteful, classic, chic and without airs. The Hastings house boasts stunning gardens with a clean cottage to get ready in and has the beach as a backdrop, the Farallon Restaurant’s Beluga Reception Room at The Kensington Park Hotel doesn’t get any more classic, tasteful and quintessential San Francisco than that. Completely up my alley and the thing that synced it for me was Alexia said they liked my work because it felt alive the other work they looked at seemed soulless. I think it’s still one of the best complements I have ever received. I respect her politics tastes and her amazing education. Alexia and Mike are a wonderful couple who seem to operate on courtesy, partnership, mutual respect and an honest friendship. I learn a lot about people at weddings and Ian I left wanting to be more like them. After hearing Alexia’s mother’s speech about how her daughter chose a husband I wanted my daughters to learn from Alexia. Ian and I also enjoyed them immensely. It’s a day for us either will soon not forget.

We ate a very late dinner at the Farallon restaurant and it was one of the most amazing meals of our lives. I can still taste it.

This week the theme was prom. Beautiful dresses, daughters and life. A time and a place for them to shine and feel beautiful. They are beautiful inside and out.

I met Kelley when she was in the 3rd grade and I helped plan her wedding and because I was planning it I brought my camera and I shot some of it. This is what she wrote on my facebook page:

” I have known Kim for many years now, as I went to school with her oldest son. When I got married in the summer of 2007 I asked Kim if she would help with the organizing part of my wedding since I already had chosen a photographer. Kim took some pictures anyway because she was just beginning to build her business. I wish now that I had chosen her to do all my wedding pictures as the ones she took were ten times better then the others. Since then, Kim has only continued to grow in her creativity. I have used her for family photos and pictures of my little girl. She is such a talented woman and I highly recommend her for any line of photography beause she has the capability to adapt to anything!”

I spent dusk at our local park with her and her children.

She is probably going to need to be an agent or photographer as she doesn’t like being directed. Sort of like me.

at butt lake

It’s one of my favorite photographs…..just taken