Love how much these two laugh – they cracked each other up the entire afternoon and I barely had to dig into my usual arsenal of oh-so-hilarious jokes :) We wandered around some of my favorite places in downtown including Little Tokyo, where we happened upon the newly opened ‘lette. I’m usually the first to run towards macarons, but was happily surprised to find Volt & Cecile beelining for the store before me – definitely my kind of clients! :)

Their wedding will be my last for the year and I’m so excited to be there to capture it and celebrate with them!

Jess is a friend of mine from oh, maybe the 1st grade? We used to make “green tea” with mint leaves (plus a bunch of other questionable stuff) from my backyard and try to feed it to our younger sisters. She always had the most epic birthday parties and perhaps even let me copy her geometry homework once or twice (SCREW YOU PROOFS). I would like to compare Jess to Mary Poppins, in that she’s practically perfect in every way. She is ridiculously smart, horribly sweet, fabulously silly, abundantly kind, and a great friend.

So when she first told me about Rich, I may have been a bit skeptical. Because who could be so perfect for such a perfect person? But upon hearing about him and meeting him I realized that he somehow also is smart, and sweet, and silly, and kind, and most of all makes Jess endlessly happy. The proof (NOT THE GEOMETRY KIND) is in the photos. In the way he’s gazing at her in this one. The way she’s laughing in that one. Their whole engagement session was so joyful, so personal, so real.

It may have helped that we shot in a wonderful little Italian restaurant {La Sosta Enoteca – oh the light! the rustic chairs! those billowy curtains!} in Hermosa Beach, where they had many of their first dates and first memories. Or that Rich brought along his two awesome daughters (be sure to scroll down!) for the second half of the session on the beach.

As I always hope for in engagement sessions, this one did seem so them – practically perfect in every way :)

Another beautiful engagement session at home – always one of my favorite kinds. I was so excited when I pulled up to their Santa Monica apartment as it was the most lovely and historic one on the whole block. And they had a backyard! A rare & much coveted addition to west LA apartments and townhomes :) We did some cozy shots inside with books & chocolate-chip-cookie-making before strolling around their yard, and then headed down to the beach to finish up.

And I can’t finish up this post without throwing out a mention about crazy cute their cat was. I am a cat person {THERE, I SAID IT, IT’S ALL OUT THERE ON THE INTERNET} and am on a perptual worldwide mission to prove that cats make just as fun & loving companions as their canine counterparts. Liv & Greg’s cat should be the face of my campaign as he was SO full of personality – he ran up to me the second I walked in, desperately wanted to be in all the photos, and as we shot outside along the back and side of the house, he followed us from the inside, meowing from whatever window was closest. TOO CUTE.