David and Zar live in Vancouver, Canada but their summer wedding held at Gull's Way in Malibu with close friends and family. Gull's Way is the late TV personality Dick Clark's house, and in fact, Beyonce was apparently staying next door to this estate for a quick vacation during their wedding ceremony. This international couple met in 2009 online and decided to settle in Vancouver, but Zar was born in Malaysia and grew up in Tel Aviv, Israel while David was born in San Diego but grew up in Westlake Village (between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara). I always wonder what my wedding would be and honestly, I get ideas from my own clients every weekend. And this intimate wedding with about 30 people would probably be mine if there's a wedding. I'm not sure if my family can make it (like Zar's family couldn't), but I know the wedding will be filled with emotions like theirs - nervousness, excitement, happiness, and a little bit of sadness for those who couldn't physically be there.
You know how people say that your friends represent you? When I met Katie and Russ, I felt like that a bit. They both work in journalism field; Katie is an entertainment news editor at Buzzfeed and Russ is also a movie (magazine) editor. My last job at The Associated Press was such a million years ago, but I always strive for telling stories our life as it is and it's such an honor that I get to do that on wedding days. Family and friends at Katie and Russ' wedding were also so prepared/trained for me to do my job - like, 'oh, it's just Annie - she's doing her thing - let's just ignore her.' Their day was filled with a lot of happy tears and dancing at The Ruby Street in Highland Park last summer; and here are some my personal favorites! (Oh, and yes, Brett Butterstein "assisted" me again; in fact, you'll see lots of our collaboration coming up. :D)
Just like any other fields, because this wedding industry is saturated with so many photographers (competition), I have so much fun finding my "right" clients like Kailynn and Preston who would talk to me how much they love the former White House chief photographer Pete Souza's photos of Obama administration. As a wedding photojournalist and a former journalist for news organizations, I hit the jackpot with this couple in Santa Barbara last summer.
Some people may not used to the unposed/storytelling approach to the wedding photography, so Kailynn MADE sure to let her folks know that's what I was doing all day. "Hey, guys - Annie is a documentary photographer, so she'll do her things; please don't mind her," she said to her friends and family on the wedding day as I met them for the first time. I mean..... WHAAAAAAT? I'm lucky enough to have met such a lovely, nice, chill couple, but it was such a treat to have them support and be in love with photojournalism itself.
Their wedding was held at Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, and it couldn't have been a better day photographing with Brett Butterstein, a super talented photographer (last year's Photographer of the YEAR of Wedding Photojournalist Association.)