Katie DiSimone :: San Luis Obispo Wedding Photographer, Paso Robles, Santa Barbara, San Francisco and beyond :: BLOG

Maricela and Paul come from my family*. They are wonderfully giggly. They have a ton of friends who love them dearly. And, based on the stories I heard, Mari and Paul are actually Pari and Maul. As in, they are interchangeably together always. Maricela and Paul got married in her family’s backyard in Fresno, so when you all call and ask me where you can find this venue…sorry. It’s a family affair. They worked for a year to build so many of the incredible parts…a redwood chiller, grapevine-covered pergola with benches, a large grass lawn, lovely flowers, and more. The weather was warm and the party was hopping. If some of the people look familiar to you, it’s probably because Maricela is the little sister of Juan Carlos. You remember his wedding photos? Yup, that’s right…beautiful people run in this extended family!

*Family= Not by blood, but by love. I love their families. Les quiero muchisimo!

Tritia and Eric got married in the Los Angeles area. I drove down happily knowing that I was getting the double bonus of meeting up with many of my “they live too far away, it makes me sad” friends at the wedding. (Cindy, Kristen, Jennifer, Adrienne, Andrew, John, Berry, Jesse and more…HELLO!) It was a fantastic time, and I met new friends too. In a very surreal experience, turns out two of those new friends (the Kiyoi brothers, for those of you who know them) ended up attending another wedding in Fresno that I shot 2 weeks later. Completely unrelated wedding parties, but apparently the world is just that small. How cool is my work that I get to make new friends like that?!

If you’ve ever had the experience of being around me when I am photographing people, you’ll know that when a photo *really* speaks to me, I get chills. Literally, my whole body gets goosebumps instantly. This was the first time I’ve had that at a wedding from hearing the musicians. You see…Tritia was a music major at UCLA and so when she called on her friends to play music at her ceremony…she literally had the MOST amazing talent to draw from. The music was first class delight. Another delight? Tritia put little elements of Disneyland into her wedding. Which, of course, made me feel right at home. Now if I could only learn Mandarin Chinese. I was inspired to look for classes after doing so poorly on the few words I tried to say. Luckily, I could manage to get yi, er, and san halfway decent, right?

Can’t wait to see you guys again. We are going to Disneyland soon…want to meet us there?

Christa and Mike got married in Fresno, and had their reception at a really unique place. An airport hangar. Yup. Too cool. It had an old world, Casablanca vibe. Super cool prop planes all around us. Incredible old cars, the kinds where the back doors open opposite direction to today’s cars. Combined with all the details that they put together (birdcage veil, flowing dress, silver table decor), it really made me feel like I should check the calendar to see if it was 1940s.

And then…Christa’s family is full Southern. Big hugs, sweet southern drawls, and incredible love all the way around. LOVED it!!! I even loved them enough that I will accept their undying Los Angeles Lakers allegiance during this NBA Finals season. I do appreciate how Lakers’ colors snuck into the bridesmaid’s outfits with yellow bouquet ribbon and (awesome) purple heels. They really REALLY love the Lakers.

Thanks to all the family and friends that gathered around them to celebrate the day! I know that you made them incredibly happy, I can see it in all the photos!

Baby Ricky is Baby Joey’s cousin, you met Joey a few posts back. Ricky is just 6 months younger than his cousin, but he had me fooled. He must be in the 90% in height and weight…cause I thought he was just about the same age as Joey. Or maybe my mom-senses are tuned to the 5-7 year old girls now? Anyways…Ricky was pulling grass, grabbing his toes, or crawling away. Lots of looking around and down, and not so much at a camera. But, when we could distract him enough to catch his attention…wowah! What a smile! And the little drool was just so stinkin’ age appropriately adorable. Somehow, drool on a little baby’s chin melts my heart.

Holly is in kindergarten this year. Jason normally does all the drop-off and pick-ups from school, so I am not very familiar with all her classmates. But, we have heard quite a bit about a little boy named “T.J.” He’s apparently got an electric guitar at home and a little brother and sister. As we later found out, they also live right around the corner from us.

There was one day where I got to pick Holly up from class, and I got there a few minutes early. Early enough to see Holly cheating off of T.J.’s papers as they were finishing an assignment. I peeked over at T.J.’s paper too…and let me tell you, I couldn’t have been more proud of Holly. She picked the smartest boy in the class to cheat off of. He is wicked smart! We’ve also met his parents and they are great people, too.

After our trip to Maui, T.J. strolled up to Jason one day and said he and Holly were going to get married. And just this week, T.J. dropped off some secret envelopes to Holly at the end of class. Eight envelopes. Which Holly tried to hide while she blushed 4 shades of red. We finally got to see inside the envelopes. Is it too early for me to start finding her a wedding photographer? Cause we really like T.J. too.

Suzanne and Matt knocked my socks off with surprises. First off, they chose Old Santa Rosa Chapel in Cambria for their ceremony. This is one of my favorite wedding places in the County, but I haven’t had a ceremony there in years. It reminds me of the quintessential “little chapel” that all sorts of movies try to recreate. Stained glass windows, white wood siding, old wooden pews, and surrounded by oaks. Reminds me of the little kid’s rhyme “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open up the doors and see all the people.” Just incredible.

Following the ceremony, we cruised just a couple blocks away to the garden patio of Robin’s Restaurant for the reception where I saw my second big surprise. Playing in the corner for the evening’s music was Jill Knight. A wee bit of background, Jill Knight is a local musician currently making it big (well, she’s been doing that for awhile now, actually). I’ve known about her since about 1994 when an old boyfriend told me I should go see one of her shows. He swore I’d love her music. Here is it 15 years later, and I’d never seen a live show of her’s…but have been secretly stalking her music for a long time. I totally geeked out and gushed how excited I was to see her playing there. I sure hope I didn’t scare her.

Suzanne and Matt have the full-court press from me to move up to the Central Coast. They have loads of family here and now an extra friend (in me). If you ever want to meet new friends, stop by the Moonstone Landing to meet some of Matt and Suzanne’s family. They make everyone feel at-home at their family hotel, not to mention that fact that it made a perfect center for this Cambria destination wedding. Just amazing to meet people like this through my photography. I’m so lucky.

Matt’s brother-in-law made a tandem as their wedding gift. It was absolutely one of the coolest, most personal gifts I’ve seen. So appropriate for Matt and Suzanne.

Before the ceremony started, Matt was all casual and calm.

And then he saw Suzanne walk through the chapel doors. His jaw fell on the ground, his eyes watered up, he blew out a large sigh, and I could swear I saw him mouth the words “Oh. @$!#!” (in a very very good way). I got instant chills and turned to see Suzanne myself. I think I mouthed the same thing. She looked amazing.

And, I love this one. Immediately after getting out of the chapel and before their friends and family get to them…Matt gave Suzanne a HUGE hug and kiss. They were radiant.