Here we are day two of the 30-day blog challenge, YES! Look at me two days in a row!  So this post is of the personal nature, I just wanted to share a beautiful Los Angeles salon with all of you.  A wonderful client of mine Mrs. Sherri (who had the beautiful Cabo San Lucas wedding) works at the cutest hair salon in Los Angeles.  The photos below are all from the salon, which I found to be filled with cute and inspiring decor.

I have a special place in my heart for LA; I lived there for a year back in 2004 while I attended acting school.  While we can all say how noisy and heavily populated LA is, I still get a good feeling when I go there.  And I think the reason is because I love love love old Hollywood history.  And even nerdier than that I like to bring one my biographies about an old classic movie star (I am currently reading Jimmy Stewart’s biography) to LA and just go read at Griffith park and be surrounded by places the biographies mention.  The only sad thing is I feel that LA does not value its rich history, thus they do not preserve all the old historical landmarks I most admire.  I remember the first time I went to LA in high school and saw the famed Hollywood sign, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and Lucille Ball’s old house and kinda thought: wow this is it?  Only because the surrounding areas of these amazing sites are the likes of tacky souvenir shops and car repair businesses. Well maybe excluding Lucille Ball’s old home which is in Beverly Hills.

All right enough musings on Los Angele’s history and lack of preservation.  The salon Sherri works at is called Román Salon and it exudes such a quaint and calming environment.  OH! My favorite part (other than the beautiful hair that Sherri and her assistant Christina do) is the coffee and cookies!  There is something so enjoyable about that combination I now look forward to it when I go.  Such a simple touch that adds so much to their salon, in my cookie obsessed opinion that is.

My sister and I took the opportunity while there to turn their salon into a location for a photo shoot.  So the blonde girl you see below is my sister Jennifer working it for my camera.

Here is adorable Sherri doing her thang.  She rocks out the hair doing ladies and gentlemen check out her site

Sherri fixing my hair while my sister was taking pictures of me

Ah I love how cute my sister and Sherri look in that photo!

We made a little friend

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I make no secret of it, I am a huge fan of Christmas music.  Come December it’s as if no other genres of music exist any longer, and all I know is 96.5, my Christmas songs on iTunes and my Christmas station on Pandora.  I thought I would make a little top 7 countdown of my favorite Christmas songs, ending on Christmas day.  It’s almost an impossible task to narrow it down to just 7.  I will do my best, but please do not be offended if your favorite is not on the list!  Odds are I love the song, but had to be selective to get just my favorite 7.

To start we have Judy Garland “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” I hope everyone is enjoying this holiday season!

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Happy almost Thanksgiving everyone!  What are we all eating?  As a vegetarian I can’t say that Thanksgiving is my favorite food holiday; however, I love it for the time spent with family, friends and for that festive cocktail or two.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving full of too much turkey and sweets.

Today’s blog is of the lovely and beautiful Erika and her handsome husband Daniel’s wedding.  Erika has this great personality that is just so fun loving and happy it’s really contagious.  Also she’s quite the renaissance women while Daniel was deployed overseas she planned much of the wedding, went to school, worked, and found and moved her and Daniel’s things into their new home together.  Not to discredit you Daniel I know you had a little something to do with getting the wedding all taken care of too! This wedding also takes first place for smallest driving distance to shoot a wedding.  The ceremony and reception were a whole 7 minutes from my place love that!

Their wedding ran fairly smoothly… there was a little incident with it being the limo drivers first day! But Erika kept her calm and it all worked out in the end.  They got married at the Admiral Kidd Club a location that I would love to get married at!  The ceremony is right by the bay with downtown in the background-gorgeous! Just take a look for yourself!

Their first look! I love the excitement on each of their faces!

How BEAUTIFUL does Erika look?! She is bringing it and I wish I could pull that look off.

Ceremony site so lovely

I love downtown in the background.

Thank you so much to you both and your guests, I mean really your wedding was full of such nice people I was very happy to be a part of such a crowed.  Oh and  Chloe your toast is still up in my favorites I have ever heard good job!

Venue- Admiral Kidd Club

Wedding Coordinator- HelenaParker

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I must admit before my trip to Cabo San Lucas for Sherri and Brendan’s wedding I was a bit nervous.  This was my first time shooting in Mexico and I wanted to be sure that everything would go as smoothly as possible.  Well it turns out all of those worries were unwarranted because everything went off without a hitch. From the plane ride there, the car to the hotel (stocked with beers and water thank you very much) to the hotel itself (which was beautiful) to the wedding, and all the in betweens it all went like clockwork.  Before we get to the wedding I feel obligated to explain a bit why Mexico was such a fun place:

– I got to practice all the Spanish I had been learning for so long in college and high school.  I am Mexican, however I don’t think people can actually tell, but I do try to speak the language as good as my Grandma.  I’m not quite to her level, but Mexico was a great excuse to use it on a daily basis.

– AMAZING beans and rice right on the beach at The Office.  I would recommend it, they have a stage there too, and I will admit when they did a hitting of a piñata, my sister (who was a guest at the wedding) and I were up there reliving our childhood memoires.

-Jet skiing around beautiful islands- need I say more?  It was so nice, I can’t remember the last time I went jet skiing.

– Beautiful hotel rooms, nice people, gorgeous setting, good food

-Fun hot spots.  After the wedding a lot of people wanted to continue the dancing, so we all went to a local bar and the music they played there was good for the dancing.

So enough about that and on to the good stuff- Sherri and Brendan.  I knew going into shooting their wedding it was going to be beautiful, and they certainly did not disappoint.  I got there a few days ahead of the wedding to relax by the pool and to scope out the venue ahead of time. Their wedding was at a beautiful resort called Cabo Del Sol, upon first seeing where their ceremony would be I just thought, this is going to be a great setting for photos.  You get the crash of the ocean right behind you while you get married on a grassy knoll next to a cactus.  The cactus part got me; you don’t see that in California.  I had the pleasure of meeting almost all their family and friends before the wedding and they were all such great and fun people.  The feeling the whole time I was there was just very fun and relaxed, Sherri was just looking forward to the moment she got to walk down that aisle and see Brendan waiting there for her.

From here Christian Louboutin shoes to that gorgeous Monique Lhuiller dress Sherri looked stunning on the day of the wedding. I had a fabulous time photographing these two, I mean they are just so dang photogenic I feel like they did all the work for me.  And I’d like to add that the food at their wedding was UH-MAZING! It was something like 5 courses of deliciousness and the desert was a mini chocolate lava cake that was just so beautifully presented.  And I had to eat it, there is no way this girl is gonna pass up on that!

Ok I gotta cut myself off because this post just turned into my longest post ever in word length and photos!

ENJOY!

I loved the style of her dress you young and modern

Personal touches like the ones on her bouquet add such a personal touch to a wedding, and make for great detail shots

THE shoes.  These were great they were definitely not traditional and I loved that about them

Brendan’s mom provided me with this great map of Mexico.  I loved the idea of using it to set the stage for where their wedding was

Venue- Cabo Del Sol

Coordinator- Karla Casillas

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I hope everyone gets some candy today and watches a spooky movie.  I myself did not have the chance this moth to watch all the Halloween movies I enjoy.  But I did see one of my favorites “Halloween” and am close to finishing my other favorite “Psycho” I was too tired the other night when Bryan and I were watching it and try as I might I feel asleep during it.

Everyone have fun trick or treating…or passing out candy…or apples…or toothbrushes…or whatever I may have missed that you enjoy passing out on Halloween!

OH! And this week is gonna be fun, I’m off to Mexico to photograph a wedding.  I have never been to Cabo so it will be a good time I’m sure.

p.s this is my adorably cute 17 year old black kitty…her name is Sassy. She says Happy Halloween too!

I was a black cat again this year….it’s kind of been my costume since 2001.  Unoriginal??? Maybe, but I can’t help myself!

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