When I took my first steps into wedding photography, I had some goals in mind. They were basic, fluffy, whimsical goals – little dreams I dared not shape too concretely in fear that I might never attain them. I wanted to meet fabulous, warm, so-in-love people. I wanted to help create tangible memories of their most important days. I wanted to make friends out of the people who inspired me, the photographers I admired. And above all, I wanted to give back. Because at the start, I was barely more than a walking ball of questions. I felt like a silly empty glass that a million kind people were filling with knowledge and support and opportunity and all I could give in return were my insignificant but abundant “thank you”s.

And although my cup of knowledge is still far from being runneth over, I am finally at a place where I feel I can give and not just take. The opportunities to share my experiences are suddenly popping up left and right, and although I have so much more to learn myself, I am beyond thrilled to share whatever bits of information and experience I can.

One such opportunity has come from The Wedding Clique, a resourceful website created to help brides and grooms in planning their day. I am so honored to be included in such an amazing group of vendors, and to be able to contribute towards a couple’s wedding planning process – a process that for many is at once exciting, overwhelming, intimidating, and wonderful!

A couple weekends ago The Wedding Clique put on it’s first Mock Wedding Workshop at The Renaissance Hotel in Downtown Long Beach. It was created as an opportunity for couples to experience a “pretend wedding” in preparation for their actual day. The workshop progressed similarly to how many wedding days do – from getting ready, to the ceremony, to the reception – and was filled with beautiful details and wonderful input from the participating vendors. My deepest thanks to my friend Henry Chen for inviting me to be a part of such an amazing event and project!

Meet the team – the boys: Andrew of Iobon Cinema, Henry Chen, Raul of R&R Entertainment; the girls: Solana of Beauty by Solana, Trini of Nozza Studio, Sarah Yates, Deanne of Bella Fiore

Henry and Trini start off the day with a warm welcome:

Solana put on an awesome make-up trial run, with lots of tips for brides:

Deanne explains when and where you can expect to get your flowers on the day of (I know I’d be SO excited the first time I got to hold my bouquet!):

We then headed upstairs for a mock first look – love these expressions!

The ceremony site:

Gorgeous floral details:

And onto the mock ceremony!

Henry was a great impromptu officiant:

Sarah in action:

There is nothing pretend about this kiss! (I’ve never seen such an excited officiant either ;)

Then it was back inside for the reception! The dinner tables were adorned with such rich and beautiful details:

Raul gives the lowdown on choosing and working with a DJ:

And of course.. the cake!

Be sure to stay tuned on The Wedding Clique website for the next workshop, and for regular updates geared towards helping plan your wedding day!

I remember when I attended the first Furious Photographers workshop. Boy was I excited. But I was also nervous. I was fidgety. I had more than a couple butterflies milling around inside of me. After all, I was as newbie as newbie gets.

Fast forward a bit to the 2nd Furious Photographers workshop and just a few things have changed. I came this time with a better knowledge of my camera. A couple more lenses. A few more memory cards. A cool bag to hold it all in. And though I still had a bit of that nervous-excited feeling in my tummy I also felt this awesome reassuring calm that hey, these are a bunch of cool dudes. Dudes who don’t mind that I am a newbie – who in fact embrace my newbieness (and everyone else’s newbieness) and kindly show us the ropes. Fun, helpful dudes who led an awesome first workshop and a top-of-the-notch 2nd one as well!!

For this one we met at their killer home studio and learned some of the business side of wedding photography before heading off on an awesome shoot in downtown LA. Gavin of Gavin Photography led us to an explosion of rainbow colors… I can’t believe I never knew this place existed! After shooting there we went back to the studio and covered some post-processing techniques. Fun and informative, doesn’t get much better than that!

A big thank you to Andrew and Megan – the gorgeous models who could not take a bad picture if they tried their darndest, to Peter for referring them, and All Made Up for their dazzling make-up and hair artistry. And of course to the FP team for an amazing day!

Aren’t they both gorgeous?

And now for a few behind-the-scenes photos…

Doug in the studio:





Lawrence demonstrates:



The Furious Photographers setting up the shots… they make great models too!





Kevin keeps one eye out for traffic:



With Tawny!



At the end of the day the Furious Photographers took a quick group photo! See the final result on their blog:

When I first came across the Missional Photography Intensive I could barely believe my eyes. The opportunity to learn from Dane Sanders, Jessica Claire, & Mike Colon all in one sitting? For $40? That alone was unbelievable. And then as I slowly read what the workshop was about I felt even more compelled to sign up.

I feel like “serving” has been a part of my days that has been missing recently, but was so integral in every other stage of my life. Girl Scouts in grade school, KIWINS’s in high school, APHIO in college – it was something I always sought out to do. But ever since I’ve hopped into the “working world” this has changed, and I don’t like it. I don’t like that I’m so “busy” that I feel I don’t have time to give back. I’ve been trying to think of what I can do to change this, and in the midst of these thoughts, I came across this opportunity.

It’s amazing how much was covered in the 4 weeks. There were people from all different backgrounds in the class – some professional photographers, some just picking up a camera for the first time – and the intensive did an amazing job of catering to everyone. All three of the intensive leaders are brilliant speakers and teachers – the kinds of people who are engaging and interesting and excellent at helping you understand, making you laugh, involving you in dialogue, and it was so great that they were essentially donating their time to share their knowledge with us. It made me look forward to class every week, even though it meant braving the 405 from West LA to Costa Mesa (I think I cringed a little just typing that).

I love the issues the course addressed – essentially how to tell and honor the stories of others through your photographs. I really have realized how easy it is to be caught up in the “photographer” side of things and almost forget that you are taking pictures of real people and their real lives. That it is not about your perfect image, and that it is about the stories we all have to share.

Dane during the weekly photo critiques (the photo he’s holding was one of my favorites!)



Mike explains histograms



A shot with Jessica Claire. She actually photographed my taiko group (those photos you see along the top of each page are hers) though I was not at that shoot. (I know, it’s terrible.)



Thank you to Doug for this one!

Unfortunately I didn’t get to grab a pic with Mike Colon but suppose I can make do with the one from February :)