Two years later, we had the honor to photograph the wedding of Cathy, China Soul’s cinematographer, and her fiance David. Pastor Zhiming Yuan, an acclaimed evangelist among Chinese circle and founder of China Soul, held the wedding ceremony for the couple. David, currently enrolled at Fuller Theological Seminary, is leading a youth fellowship at church with Cathy, who just finished a 10 episode TV documentary titled Beyond.  As the young couple tied their knots, they have already serving devotedly together, reminding me of the scripture: As for me and my house, we will server the Lord (Joshua 24:15).

Cathy and David, congratulations for your wedding! Marriage is the place where we grow, and learn the true meaning of love. This journey won’t always be smooth but with HIM along the way, every step will be full of blessing. We wish you a fruitful life together.

The first time we met with them, we noticed how different they are.  Dan is a computer science Ph.D, working with computers day in and day out, while Debra is an eye doctor, who works with people all the time.  Debra is easy going and she can make you feel at home the moment you meet her.  Dan, like most folks with engineering focus, is very logical and detailed oriented.  He even helped us to improve the wording of our contract.  At their wedding, they had a Lego theme game.  That was just so Dan J.   It is amazing to see how different they are, yet how much they love and care for each other.

Debra and Dan, thanks for having us for your wedding.  Yong and I know you together will be an invincible team!

Opposites Attract by Boogs

Everyone says I’m a good girl and yes it’s true
no one understands why the one I’m with is you.
no matter how much bad you’ve done, to me you’ll never lie
thinking of my life without you makes me wanna cry.
people dont understand why I’m the bad boy’s chick
but what they don’t see is that you’re here for me through thin and thick
people stare like it’s wrong everytime we’re in sight
well if loving you is wrong then i dont want to be right.
we love each other very much and its a fact;
who cares what people say or think, the truth is opposites attract.

We would also like to give our best wishes to those new babies, Tina and Thomas’ baby boy, Sarah and Jawad’s baby girl, Laura and Andre’s angel girl. We are SO SO happy for you guys! We wish they all have a blessed life ahead of them. And Tina, Sarah and Laura, happy mother’s day!

We know that some of our brides and grooms are trying to have babies this year. You are in our prayers. If it is taking longer than what you had hoped for, just keep in mind God knows when is the best timing and he has the best prepared for you.

To all our brides and grooms, we would like to say THANK YOU!

Shirley and Norman, both descendants of Chinese immigrants, got married in San Francisco. It was a full day with two tea ceremonies, a Christian wedding, and a dinner banquet in a Chinese restaurant. Throughout the day, I witnessed some Chinese traditions that I have only seen in movies or heard from my parents. These traditions that our bride and groom managed to include – in their busy wedding schedule planned to the minutest details – must be the custom their parents or grandparents brought in when they first landed on this foreign soil. The early Chinese immigrants, mostly coming during the “Gold Rush”, worked hard and lived frugally.

“The Chinese did not only mine for gold, but took on jobs such as cooks, peddlers, and storekeepers. In the first decade after the discovery of gold, many had taken jobs nobody else wanted or that were considered too dirty”
– Immigration: The Living Mosaic of People, Culture, and Hope

Throughout the years, they overcame many obstacles and preserved their culture distinction and heritage. Remember the redwood trees of the northern California coast? They are able to remain upright for millennia by growing close together with other redwood trees, intermingling root systems. I believe to Shirley and Norman’s parents, the traditions and values are their root systems, through which Chinese immigrants connected, endured, survived, and flourished to become a significant part of US ethnic diversity. While young folks in China nowadays are westernizing themselves in many aspects of their life including their wedding style, it is amazing to see how Shirley and Norman had kept the Chinese customs in their wedding for yet another generation.

Here are some pictures from their day.

Kelly’s family came from Japan.  Though I have shot a few Japanese/Japanese-born-American before, it was on Kelly and Richard’s wedding that I got a chance to take a closer look at some of the authentic Japanese tradition: Koto play and Taiko performance.

Koto is a tranditional Japanese stringed musical instrument and, according to wikipedia, the national instrument of Japan.  When the musician, dressed in kimono, sit down before the ceremony and started to set up koto, I was immediately mesmerized.   Even though I barely know anything about music, hearing just a few notes played on the koto brought to my mind the simple yet elegant beauty of traditional Japan.   “Popular among aristocrats, the koto was a romantic instrument in ancient Japanese literature. In one section of The Tale of Genji, Japan’ s first novel, Prince Genji falls deeply in love with a woman he has never seen after hearing her exquisite koto performance. The novel was written by the authoress Murasaki Shikibu, who was an accomplished koto player herself. ” (Koto World)

If “romantic” is the word to be associated with koto, the taiko performance Kelly and Richard brought to their reception was best described as “exciting, sensational, and awe-inspiring”. Taiko means “drum” in Japanese (etymologically “great” or “wide drum”).  Filled the room with rolling thunders, the three drummers blended rhythms, dance, and martial arts into a perfect and powerful harmony that almost freezed the time.  For a moment, I felt that I was brought back across time and space into castles and shrines in ancient Japan, a scene one would only see in motion picture movies.

Koto and taiko play filled Kelly and Richard’s wedding with romance and excitement.  Kelly and Richard, Congratulations! I am sure romance and excitement, two key ingredients of marriage, will accompany you beyond your wedding and throughout your life together.

The work doesn’t just start on the day. Prior to each wedding, a lot of preparation with respect to wedding photography have taken place. Of course weddings don’t always go as planned, but it has proven that the more we understand our couple and their wedding day, the better we can capture the wedding as they have dreamed.

Every now and then, we come across couples who take such extra miles to work with us that even before their wedding, we know the picture part will go as smooth as we can ever wish for. Celeste and Russell is one such couple. They booked us over almost a year ago, and chemistry was like love-at-first-sight. Two weeks before their wedding, they came picked me up and drove me around for a tour of all the locations for their wedding day. On the way, they shared their ideas for pictures and asked modestly for my “expert’s” input. They also recorded the time for driving and walking around for better planning of their schedule. What a lovely couple!

The wedding went perfectly as planned. While they impressed me with their diligence and attention to details throughout the preparation, they certainly rocked the party, which was fun, wild and totally relaxed. In their own words, “We had such an amazing time at our wedding, we really could not have asked for a better day”.

Congratulations Celeste and Russell!

So when Bin was pregnant with our second child, I wasn’t surprised at all that she wanted yet another girl.  As it turned out to be a boy, I know somewhere in Bin’s heart, she feels a bit disappointed, not for herself but for our daughter Sylvia.  In her theory, a brother won’t be able to understand and support a sibling the way a sister would.  Even I can’t say I disagree with her.  After all, girls, in general, tend to be more understanding and sensitive towards each other. However, at Liz and Allen’s wedding last month, I witnessed the strong bonding between Liz and her brother Alex.

It was time for Alex to give toast. With a microphone and a glass of wine in his hands, Alex was standing in the front by the newly-wed. As all the guests fixed their eyes on him, Alex took a look at his sister Liz and closed his eyes. Tears started to run down. Everyone in the room waited. It was quiet. Yet in those few seconds of silence, we all felt the strong emotions and bonding between the brother and his sister. Finally, Alex opened his eyes. “Those are real tears”, he started with laughter. Then he went ahead to tell everyone how close he and Liz were while they grew up togather, how Liz had always been his little sister, and how he had always tried to take care of her. Now it was time for this elder brother to hand her over to Allen.

At the end of his speech, Alex and Liz hugged each other, tears in their eyes. As I clicked my camera to capture this precious moment, I wished in my heart that Sylvia and Nathan would grow up to enjoy the same kind of bonding Alex and Liz had.

Love is the same, whether it is between sisters or between a brother and a sister.

Congratulations Liz and Allen!

BTW, In celebration of our newborn, I am adding 2 extra coverage hours for free for all wedding packages.  This offer is valid for all inquiries in August 2009 only (regardless of the event date).

I finally met Marlene’s family on the big day.   Marlene’s parents speak very little English, yet that didn’t stand in Art’s way to bond with them.  I remember the moment of father-daughter dance.  While Marlene broke into tears in her father’s arm with music, Art offered his shoulder to her mom, who couldn’t hold back the tears either.  As a father of a four year old girl, I doubt I could fully fathom the emotions of a parent giving away his daughter thousands of miles from home.  However, I could feel their love for Marlene, and their trust in Art to care for their beloved daughter, despite that he doesn’t even speak the same language.  Love just knows no boundaries!

Marlene and Art, congratulations for your wedding and the joint of two families!  Wish you guys all the happy years together!