Wedding Guests - Memorable Monday
Over the weekend, we traveled to San Diego where we were WEDDING GUESTS for the first time in over a year. Most of our close friends are already married so there haven't been many friends weddings we're participating in lately. Being in the wedding industry for almost six years now, attending as a "guest" feels a little funny. Let us explain!
We love shooting weddings! We always have. We love the relationship we form with our couples, we love serving them and being a part of their legacy of love. However, showing up and not having to think about lighting, timeline or traveling with all our gear felt amazing too. Stephen grew up just outside of Chicago in a suburb called Wheaton. The way he described his childhood and the friendships his family made there sound magical. His family had amazing neighbors and a church family who they were really sad to leave when moving to California when he was 15 years old. In college, Stephen went to Biola University down in Southern California, and somehow almost all of his best friends from Wheaton also attended Biola. It was like there was no time apart and they were all able to reconnect and be fast friends once again. One of Stephen's childhood friends from Wheaton and Biola friends got married this past weekend in San Diego. Miles attended our wedding and we knew we wanted to make the trip out to support him and catch up with so many old friends who also would be attending.
So for this week's Memorable Monday series, I'm going to change things up a bit. Instead of talking about our week, I'm going to share some random facts with our about our rare experience of being wedding guests and adventures we went on over the weekend. Enjoy!
Our Weekend in San Diego
- Shooting film - A few years ago, Stephen purchased a medium format film camera for me for our wedding anniversary. I tried learning how to use it several years ago, but pretty much gave up. Film is a whole 'nother beast and at the time I still needed to perfect my craft with my digital camera. I understand lighting and composition so much more now and have been wanting to give film another shot for a long time now. One of my goals for 2018 is to become fast and efficient in shooting film at our sessions (more on this later). We had all day Saturday to explore the San Diego area so I decided to only bring my film camera and push myself to shoot with that. Today, I'll be sending out my rolls to the lab and see how they turn out. I'm excited to try something new, push my creative craft and feel inspired by the beauty and simplicity of film once again!
- Our Adventures - If you only have one day to explore San Diego and don't know what to do, here is what we recommend. Go to Balboa Park and walk around for as long as you want. It's this big beautiful Park right in the heart of San Diego. There is amazing European Architecture, amazing museums and lots of walking and running trails. You could easily spend all your time there. From there, we headed to Coronado Island to explore the cute downtown and visit the beach. It was a perfect Saturday spent before we went to the wedding.
- What We Wore - In our opinion, if you're going to be wedding guests, you can never be over-dressed! When we got married, Stephen purchased his wedding suit and since then, it has become a staple for weddings we've attended and even for our anniversary photos. I can't stress enough that having a good go-to suite for guys is always a good idea!
- Visit Moulin Bakery- We ended up booking our flights home out of Long Beach so we drove from San Diego up. I wanted to visit my best friend Chels (I know, same name, it's confusing) who lives in that area. The last time I visited her, she took me to this amazing place near Costa Mesa called Moulin Bakery and it's amazing! It's an authentic French Bakery with the most delicious pastries and coffee. It's a little taste of France and most of the people behind the counter even speak French. I loved visiting with her for a few hours before we hopped on a short plane ride home.
- Final Thoughts - Being wedding guests is super fun and it was a nice change of pace for us. It reminded us of why we love our jobs so much and we were so thankful for this little weekend get-away. We danced the night away and sent the happy new couple off with a sparkler exit!