This post is part 1 of a 3-part series. Read part 1 – Read part 2 - Read part 3

Remember the foreshadowing I mentioned in this post?

At last, you get to find out what happened. What happened was, Crystal and Peter got married! Are you surprised? Did you already guess the secret plot twist? Was the fact that we are wedding photographers give away the ending?

Before we start with happily ever after, a warning: there are 24 photos in this post. Yeah, I know, that’s a lot for one post. And it’s only Part 1. But I love so many of the photos that it was hard to pare it down to just 24. Never fear, I have taken steps to ensure that they will load quickly, by optimizing the heck out of them.

Part 1 shows the bride and groom and their families getting ready. The perspective switches back and forth between the locations of the bride and the groom. Crystal got ready at her parents’ house, and Peter got ready at a beach house. Having two photographers allowed us to put together quite a complete narrative of the day (what you’re getting here is only a tiny slice of that narrative).

This was a highly creative, relaxed and friendly group; everyone who participated was a musician or artist or something of that nature. The awesome felted birds were made by Crystal’s mom. The piano duet features Crystal and her dad. Crystal herself did something I’ve never seen a bride do before: she put makeup on other people. They were all so easy to photograph and to be with that it hardly even felt like work.

The ceremony took place at the UCSC Arboretum, so I had the pleasure of following the bride and flower girl as they sneaked through the back trails to get to the ceremony site without being seen by any guests. Any wedding that involves sneaking through the woods is going to be a great one.

This post is part 2 of 2. Click here to read part 1.

Jill and Chase approached us with an unusual plan: to get married outside somewhere with an ocean view, with no guests, just the officiant and two photographers, and keep it a secret until Christmas. Would we be willing to do this? Of course we would! I love anything that’s both secret AND romantic. I was also quite thrilled that they made photography a top priority at their wedding.

Plans were made and emails exchanged, and the time came (in October) for this engagement session. It quickly became very clear that Jill and Chase are meant to be together. They were afraid they’d get nervous in front of the camera, but it didn’t take long for their feelings for each other to cause them to forget everything else. They couldn’t stop smiling at each other and kissing each other, which was just perfect for the purposes of the shoot.

We took them to Big Basin Redwoods State Park and had them reenact the proposal, and tried out all kinds of ideas for poses throughout the park. Jill and Chase were great sports about this and went along with every weird idea we thought up. There are lots of beautiful spots to work with at Big Basin, and we will definitely be taking couples here again, if they’re up for the long-ish drive.

We couldn’t resist taking them to the beach afterwards and getting a few shots there. It was a whole afternoon of driving and shooting, which we don’t normally do for engagement sessions. But because I knew we had a genuine case of true love here, I wanted to take as many photos as possible. And it’s always nice to hang out with new friends under those tall trees.

Here are some more photos from their engagement session; I’ll post some of their wedding photos in a few days.

Thanks for choosing us, Jill and Chase. It’s been a wonderful adventure to work with you two.

UPDATE: Jill and Chase got married! Read about it by clicking here.

This post is part 1 of 2. Click here to read part 2.

Instead of using my own words to introduce you to Jill and Chase, I feel it’s better to use those of Pablo Neruda in his Sonnet LXXXI. As is often the case with true love, explanations can happen later. Magic comes first…

____________

And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber.

No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.

Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
and let their soft drifting signs drop away; your eyes closed like two gray
wings, and I move
after, following the folding water you carry, that carries
me away.

The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.

UPDATE: Jill and Chase got married! Read about it by clicking here.

This post is part 2 of 2. Click here to read part 1.

Once Eleanor was more attuned to the possibilities of the eucalyptus grove at Natural Bridges, she grinned and explored the vegetation and generally knocked our socks off with her cuteness. Below you can see what I look like when confronted with such cuteness. I think my face was frozen like that most of the time we spent with Eleanor. I’m a total sucker for babies who have just learned to walk and are still putting everything in their mouths. I tend to smile at them until my face hurts.

You can also see what I was shooting just before that photo was taken. That’s the beauty of Red Bat Photography, folks. Two cameras, two perspectives on the situation. And if some passing tourists need their picture taken, as they did that day, one of us (in this case, Patrick) can stop taking client portraits and lend a hand for a moment.

Looking at these photos, I can remember how perfect the weather was that day, how warm the breeze was and how open the world felt, right next to the ocean under the trees. October is a beautiful month in Santa Cruz. And taking pictures of a baby is a marvelous way to pass the time.