Tuesdays wedding was fantastic up at the Oakland LDS Temple.  We were lucky enough to be the only wedding for the day up there, so we weren’t rushed at all with our formals on the Temple steps, and we didn’t have to worry about having miscellaneous people hanging out in our backgrounds as well.  We ended up walking around the grounds photographing for around two hours.  Even though I’ve photographed lots of weddings here, I still am amazed that I can always seem to find either a new location or a new angle to photograph from.

My assistant Shane and I left San Jose around 9:30 to make sure we got up there plenty early, since traffic can be horrid heading up that direction.  Since we got there early, we spent a some time on the grounds bouncing some image ideas off each other.

We also were enjoying the weather, which was cloudy & cool at first, but a few minutes before Peter & Jaime came out of the Temple the sun came out along with some heat.  The breeze that we had during the afternoon was great though.  It kept us from getting too hot out there!

The Oakland Temple was a great place for wedding photographs today, and the weather gods sure  smiled on us today.  My assistant and I drove up from San Jose where it was about 75-80 degrees, while some of the wedding party heading down from Ft Bragg/Redding endured lots of rain on the way to Oakland.  Luckily we ended up with temps in the mid/high 70s, and at times the clouds came over & the breeze came up.  Our wedding for the day was for Kimberly & Eric, who we did engagement photos for while out in Prov0.

We got there a little early to do a little location scouting.  I love getting to a location early (even places I’ve photographed before) as it gives me a chance to scout out new locations or angles.  I’ve found doing this allows me to get unique photographs for each client though I may have photographed that same location many times before.  Arriving plenty early also gives me a little buffer time in the event there is bad traffic or something like that.

Since they had the only wedding that afternoon, they were spoiled in a big way, since we didn’t have to wait for people to move out of our way or speed up our formals to give the other brides & grooms a chance to have their images taken.  We also were able to wonder around the grounds and enjoy the day.

Big thanks to Shane for coming out again and helping out with the wedding.

And for fun we have a couple “behind the scenes” shots from the day.

We could not have asked for a more perfect day, either with wedding details or the weather.  The tide was a little too high for the ceremony location, so it was moved about 50 yards or so down the beach to a different cove.  We had sunny skies, no fog, and temps in the mid 60s.  We also had a few good men in uniform, representing the US Coast Guard.

It was fun seeing some old friends out there, as the bride is a girl I’ve known since high school.  It was very fun & exciting to be chosen to photograph her wedding.

Well last August I had the opportunity to photograph Mallory & Shawns engagement photos while out in Utah on vacation.  After a few months of planning the day of their wedding finally came.  They were married at the LDS temple in Oakland, CA, and they had their reception back in San Jose.  We were blessed with pretty much perfect weather.  It had rained earlier in the week and cold, but on Saturday we had low/mid 60s, sunny/partly cloudy skies.  We had a blast walking around the Temple grounds getting some images of them as well as at the church for their reception that night.  Congrats you two!  A big thanks to my buddy Shane for coming out & helping lug gear around and second shooting for me.

The photos from the Temple & Reception can be found here.  Please note you will be prompted for a password  (Shawn & Mallory’s last name)