Can You Feel the Love Tonight: The Good Couple Pictures

Even though we were super late to the reception, I had to get some pictures there before we could go up.

If there had been more room in it, and the city of Tiburon didn't suck so hard, we would have gotten married at the park in front of Guayma's.  It has a beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay, and Angel Island.  I love it.

I also knew that about the time we got to the reception, we would also get the best lighting of the day.  I was not disappointed.

So we took a few quick photos before heading up to the reception, and even with the time crunch, I'm really glad we did because these photos are my favorite bunch of the day.  They are simply stunning.

Photos by Stephen Cheng Photography.

And then, finally, it was time to go to the reception.

Can You Feel the Love Tonight: Group Pictures and the Sucky Part

After our rousing applause from the group of random people watching the wedding from afar, it was time to take some group pictures.

I'll spare you the large number of pictures of Daniel's and my families and stick with the highlights.

Photos still by Stephen Cheng.

First, we got a group shot of all of Daniel's buddies from high school.

Funny story behind this one.  When Minh (second from the right) got married a few years ago, the guys all decided it would be funny to get a picture like this...and then drop him.  Since then, it has become a tradition.  Fortunately, the dropping part has gotten less funny with each wedding, so they decided to forgo it for ours...thankfully.  But now half of them have this picture, and once the other half ties the knot (coming soon!), we're going to get a frame to put all of them in.

Next was Daniel's family.  Because there are, like, 4,000 of them (seriously, his dad's side alone is 17 people that he's close to), and several of them are babies who were not very happy with the ceremony.  To give you an idea of the size, below is the picture of just them...and they're not even all in it!  Some of the babies were wailing, so we had to leave them and their parents out of it.

Yeah, trying to fit that picture into the album I made for Daniel's dad was not easy.

This Is Just Cute.  Daniel and His Dad.

Finally, there was my family.  Significantly smaller, immediate family only.

I got individual shots with each member of my family too.  The one of my brother and me is one of my very favorite photos of the day.

I cannot express how rare a treat this is.  Cody never smiles in pictures anymore.  Having a picture with so much brotherly love showing is simply priceless.

Then we took some more shots with the wedding party since we had run so short on time before.  We were all much more relaxed, and they turned out much better.

First, we had to give Julia her photographic due.

And get a picture with our officiant, also one of my favorites of the day.

And then on to the rest of the wedding party.

We finally got to take some bridal photos too.  If there is one thing I wish we had gotten more photos of, it's me :).  There were only a couple that I like, and I really wanted a bit more variety in these shots, but the photographer thwarted my plan of doing these before the ceremony, so we didn't have much time.  We did at least get a couple of good shots.

And Daniel and I got a few more fun shots together.  I'm pretty sure the photographer thought I was crazy for wanting to do some of these, but they turned out well, and I'm really glad I got them.

Then it was time to go to the reception.

Unfortunately, it was also time for the worst of the Three Things That Still Bother Me.  Before the wedding, Daniel had emptied his pockets, entrusting their contents to a friend.  In this pile were both of our car keys.  The friend left for the reception without giving them back, so we had no way to follow.

Thus, the wedding party was stuck in the parking lot of our ceremony spot with no way to get to our reception.

I was not happy.

As the boys frantically called people at the reception to get them to bring us our keys or at least come pick us up, the girls and I found something useful to do with our time:  bustling my dress.

Not awkward at all.

There were I think 12 buttons or something ridiculous like that, so that took some time.  I was lucky to have Becca there; no one else had bustled a dress before.

But that was soon done, and we still hadn't gotten ahold of anyone.  Since they were all at the reception, no one was answering their phones.

So we waited.

We were about to call a cab when someone finally picked up and saved us.

But it took forever.  The road between the two locations is windy and small, so it's not an easy drive.  We lost somewhere between half-an-hour and an hour of reception time.

I was really upset about that and still am.  The wedding went by so quickly anyway, but losing so much time and having nothing to do but wait was just not OK.

But we got there in the end and had to put aside the sadness in favor of food.

Did anything happen at your wedding that still bothers you, despite your efforts to move past it?

Can You Feel the Love Tonight: Just You and Me

After we sent the wedding party off to help set up the ceremony site with (very) detailed instructions, Daniel and I headed off to take some pictures just the two of us.

We spent days searching for picture spots.  Marin shows the true beauty of all that is California--from redwoods to mountains to the ocean--but most of its picturesque locations take time to get to, more time than we had.  Still, we managed to do well for ourselves.

We started at Blackie's Pasture where we had met the bridal party.  This strip of park holds a special place in our hearts because it is where we would have gotten married if the city of Tiburon was not filled with sadistic, empty-headed drones (a chair is not a structure, assholes!).

We got a few good pictures there, but as we got away from the wedding, my mood improved and so did the pictures.  You can see how they progress as we both started to relax.

Next stop: our one location shoot spot.  I wish we could have taken pictures all day, but obviously, that wasn't an option, so we went somewhere easy to get to but still awesome.

And really, you can't get married this close to the Golden Gate Bridge without snatching a few photos with it.

Nearby, there was a pier overlooking the bay and San Francisco with better lighting than the bridge, so we headed that-a-way.

 

Hello, San Francisco

The pier is where we really started to relax and just be ourselves.  It has some of our favorite pictures from the day.

 My Favorite Wedding Day Picture

And really, what is the point of a professional photographer if you're not going to have silly pictures?  Some of these will definitely be framed.

 Our Relationship Encapsulated

 Our Relationship Better Encapsulated

Alas, too soon it was time to head back to the ceremony site.  You know, to actually get married and stuff.

Oh My!  It's Time!

Did you leave extra time to get pictures of the two of you?  Did you find a location ahead of time or go with the flow?  And most importantly, what were your favorite pictures of the day?

Can You Feel the Love Tonight: It's Picture Time, Boys and Girls!

After our first look, we took a few more shots just the two of us and then grabbed our peeps to start with the wedding party.

Since we were running behind, we did not have as much time to get bridal party pictures as I would have liked, but we still got some good shots.

We started out with the serious photos.

 

The Groom's Party

 

Me and My Ladies

And of course I had to get some individual shots with the girls.

My MOH and I went the sweet route:

Aaaaaand then there was my other bridesmaid:

Yeah.

Then my brother entered the scene.  I should probably preface this by saying that my brother and I are very different people.  Growing up, I was the feminine ballet dancer who turned cheerleader in middle school and high school, was sweet and quiet and, for lack of a better word, square.  Cody is a musician whose work echos Bob Dylan, changes his appearance on a bi-annual basis, and spurns human contact not provided by his girlfriend.  I'll save you two thousand words.  This is me:

And this is Cody:

But of course we've known each other forever (in his case, literally), and we were really close growing up, so we've worked out our own way of taking pictures.  Without these, my wedding day would have felt incomplete.

 The picture Cody always takes that makes my parents ask where they went wrong.

 Human Emotion = Weakness

 "Really?  You really made me dress up in a tux?  STOP SMILING!"

"Oh, it's on!"

Ah, brotherly love.  In spite of what you see, we love each other very much, and these are some of my favorite pictures of the day because they are just so real (though the picture where I got Cody to smile is my real favorite of us because it's just so unique!).

Did you do more serious pictures or fun pictures?  Which do you like better?