This past Thursday was Thanksgiving, a day for good food of course (stuffing!! I wait all year for the stuffing!!) but mostly for the simple act of reflecting on our blessings and giving thanks. It also just happened to fall on my mother’s birthday, which brought additional meaning to the day. For you see, each and every year I find that I grow more and more thankful for her – this amazingly positive, endlessly loving, admirably strong-willed, shining light in my life. This person who drove me to countless lessons of every kind growing up {piano, ice skating, orchestra, tennis, the list goes on}, who filled our home with laughter and the sound of her singing voice wafting over from the kitchen, who always took the time to enjoy life and all of the little things.

There is the thankfulness of now – of when I visit her and we share a cup of tea, or go out to lunch, when she asks me about photography, and tells me how proud she is of me for doing something I love. But more and more I find that I’m thankful for then, for things I hardly even realized growing up – that she always pushed me to do my best, but never pushed me to be something I wasn’t; that she was active in our lives, but never overbearing; she was always there to listen, but never pried; that she had this immense trust and expectation in us to do the right thing, even as kids, that helped us learn to trust & respect ourselves as we grew older.

I haven’t really said this before, but I am 110% sure that if it weren’t for my mother and what she taught me, I probably never would have had the inkling that I could pursue my dreams, or have the discipline to work for what I wanted, and do what I now do. That if I got it into my head that I wanted to photograph people’s wonderful weddings, and build a business with no initial idea at all of what I was doing, I should and could go for it, absolutely, and could actually be successful.

So on this Thanksgiving day, I gave thanks for so many great things and wonderful people in my life, but I quietly included just an extra “thank you” to my mom. Thank you for always believing in me and supporting me to the fullest. For all your love and strength. And for just being you. I leave you with some photos I’ve been meaning to share, from a mother-daughter session my dear friend Ala photographed for us earlier this year :) { Thank you to Kelly Zhang for dolling us all up! }

When I try to begin writing this post about Tanya & Marcus’s wedding, the first thoughts that come to mind are thankful, thankful, thankful. Thankful that Uyen introduced us months ago. Thankful to have photographed their engagement session. Thankful to have been a part of their beautiful brunch time wedding. But most of all thankful to have met such amazing people. I don’t know if you can see it in these pictures, but Tanya and Marcus are some of the kindest, warmest people I’ve ever met – not as clients, or through my work, or this job – but EVER, IN LIFE.

I often express on this blog how much I do love pretty details and gorgeous locations, but this wedding really reminded me; nevermind that their venue was in fact beautiful, or that their flowers were the prettiest shades of purple, or their dessert bar was just the right balance of lovely and delicious – in the end, it’s all about the people. And with people as amazing as Tanya and Marcus, I could have shot any level-of-fancy wedding of theirs, anywhere on earth, and it’d be the most awesome thing ever.

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to photograph a couple that HAS to be a top contender for Most Photogenic Couple in the World. They put Demi & Ashton to shame. Bradgelina (Angelinad? what was it?) has got nothing on them. Even before I put my camera up to my face they would be smiling and hugging and making my job wayyy too easy to be legal. I think that part of it is that they’ve already gotten married and now have some experience in front of the camera (that’s why I feel engagement sessions are so important for getting comfortable in front of the big ole lens), but I could tell that so much of it is just that they’re just SO fantastically in love and couldn’t hide it if they tried!

When Lauren first contacted me she explained a bit about their wedding day. They had planned to get married in their church’s sanctuary and although it was estimated to be completed by the date of their wedding, it unfortunately was not. Now that it was done, just shy of their one year anniversary, they wanted a few pictures in the sanctuary of the church where they first met, became friends, and fell in love. After snapping a few pictures there, we headed up to the Pointe Vicente Interpretive Center in Palos Verdes for some more shots. Here are a few of my favorites!