Sara and Chad won a free Red Bat Photography engagement shoot at the 2010 Bridal Expo at Cocoanut Grove. You might win one too, if you visit our booth at the 2011 Bridal Expo, so please stop by if you attend. We give away a few free engagement shoots each year. There’s no obligation to book with us for your wedding when you enter the engagement shoot raffle. It’s simply a scheme to bring fresh energy and new faces in front of our cameras.

When we met with Sara and Chad to plan their shoot, the four of us put our minds together and a light bulb rose up above our heads and thus we came up with the idea of taking pictures at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Both Sarah and Chad love the aquarium and marine life in general. As for the Red Bats, we were excited about the challenge of shooting in a place where the light comes from fishtanks and most of the time you can’t use a flash.

What this story should be demonstrating to you: the Red Bats will do your portrait or engagement shoot anywhere it’s even remotely legal to take pictures.

The aquarium turned out to be very romantic. Lots of kissing happened in the course of this shoot (Sara and Chad kissed, NOT the Red Bats- and let me take this opportunity to remind our readers that we are not, and never have been, a couple of the romantic variety.) Seahorses kissed, and the males got pregnant. It was magical. As so many photographic situations in my life seem to do, it made me think of a famous love poem.

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle—
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain’d its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea—
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

Love’s Philosophy – Percy Bysshe Shelley

OMG I totally forgot to post the last set of photos from Scott and Lindsey’s wedding! And these are the glorious ones too.

For backstory, here are links to Part 1 and Part 2 posts about Scott and Lindsey.

The part of the reception that involved sitting at tables and eating fancy food ended after just a few hours. Then all guests were invited to join the newlyweds at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for the REAL party. Only a few of them did, probably because down by the ocean, it was cold and foggy. This did not stop Scott and Lindsey from having a delightful time at the Boardwalk in their wedding clothes. When it comes to fun times, Scott and Lindsey cannot, in fact, be stopped.

We were pleased that these two decided to do something so visually interesting and ideologically appropriate during their wedding reception. A visit to the Boardwalk is a venerable Santa Cruz ritual and it made sense to combine that kind of ritual with the matrimonial one.

The ritual became even better when the Tornado got involved. Scott talked Lindsey into it, withholding crucial information about the sick-making properties of that ride until it was far too late for Lindsey to get off the Tornado. I don’t know anything about getting married, but a ride on the Tornado seems like a fitting metaphor for that experience. Check out the photo sequence near the end of the series below and you’ll see what I mean. I’d explain my point further, but this is a photography blog and around here, the pictures are preferred to the thousand words.