Heather & Hua


Location: San Gabriel, California

John, over at Simplytwo and I had a chance to work together to capture Heather and Hua’s big day. There were 2 moments that I did not capture that day that really stick in my mind and caught me off guard.

In the morning as we’re getting ready and you see the bride getting ready in the video, what you don’t see is downstairs Heather’s mom and her mom’s friends are cooking up a storm. It’s going to be a party and these ladies can cook! They’ve got the old school propane burners and woks downstairs and the smell wafts upstairs to where we were seated. It was like a mix of paradise and torture. While the bridal party headed out for the rest of the day’s festivities, Heather’s parents were enjoying their feast. Jealous!

Hua grew up with Craig (best man) here in San Diego and Craig flew in from Australia for this big day. As we sat in the hotel after the tea ceremony, Craig was talking to Hua’s parents and I happened to catch part of the conversation. I realized Craig’s speaking Spanish (Craig is Latino) and I’m thinking “wow, Hua’s parents (who are Chinese) are incredibly kind and patient” because they’re just nodding and smiling. Suddenly, Hua’s dad starts responding in super fluent Spanish too! My jaw dropped. This wasn’t slow, high school level Spanish, this was 100 mph fluency. Amazing.

Those were two of the many moments in the day that stick out in my mind. The rest of the day flew by like a blur and I’ve recreated the feeling with a focus on the moments we’ll look back and remember years from now. So enjoy…and don’t blink!

Hoang & Jan

Location: Montaña Cielo, Jamul, California
2nd shooter: Clayton Yip

Kimmy & John

Location: The Dana Hotel, Mission Bay
Graphic Design: Mary Young

“So let me get this straight, you don’t want the vows?”

“correct”

“you don’t want any of the toasts?”

“right”

“No prep, first looks, or rings…you don’t want a normal romantic wedding video?”

“Exactly. Just capture the fun. I don’t care about the rest.”

With that, I got my requirements to go and shoot a fun wedding video for a pair of awesome coworkers who met each other here at work years ago. Despite the bride’s clear instructions, I couldn’t help but put in the first part of the video because as you’ll see, it’s the first time I’ve witnessed an almost real ear-to-ear grin. Just had to show it.

Shooting wise, this wedding gave me a chance to try out some new gear I picked up. The Manfrotto 561BHDV-1 and the spider rig were used in this shoot with a set of Canon T2i’s. Editing in FCPX.

Fun fact: The first song is the one John sang as he proposed. Shout out to H.Vuong for providing the proposal footage.

Rachel & Frank

Location: Hyatt Regency, Huntington Beach, California

I wasn’t planning to shoot this so I didn’t have much stuff but it gave me a chance to edit and try out Apple’s Final Cut Pro X software. This was my first real go at trying FCPX and I got a few thoughts I’ll jot down in a later post.

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