Category Archives: Wedding

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WE ARE MARRIED!!

February 3, 2010 – 11:07 pm

WOOOHOOOO!!! I proposed to my bride almost 6 months ago to the date.. As you can imagine an insane amount of planing and construction has taken place to get this thing pulled off.. We were so sooo thankful for ALL of our amazing vendors and friends that helped make this wedding such an incredible one! If you recall a couple weeks ago we had quite the interesting weather conditions here in So Cal which included an insane amount of rain, hail and even tornadoes.. TORNADOES for crying out loud.. This is Orange County!!! Hahah Kristin and I loved and enjoyed every minute we had during this time..

I wanted to post just a couple of the amazing photos taken by the incredible duo from Jasmine Star Photography. Jasmine and JD completely rocked our wedding photos more than I could have ever hoped or dreamed of.. I cant tell you how many people asked Kristin and myself “Well whose going to do YOUR wedding photos”… Like there was supposed to be this HUGE pressure to select the “perfect” wedding photographer.. Well there was.. Of course :) But during our initial client meeting with Jasmine all these fears and pressure quickly faded! We knew we would be completely blessed to have these two amazing photographers document our big day! In fact this was the case with ALL our amazing vendors..

Lauryl Lane, Floral Extraordinaire, was the one who was responsible and the mastermind behind our flower creations.. We came to her with ideas and that we mostly wanted a rustic vintage vibe that incorporated the use of cotton.. lots and lots of cotton.. Well what you are about to see we hope will leave you speechless like it did us.. Honestly.. when I try to describe how insanely talented and amazing Lauryl is I just cant do it..  I cant put words down that would do her work justice.. so I wont even try.. All I can say though is that Lauryl is super easy to work with, fun and energetic, ridiculously talented and an incredibly hard worker! I will refer everyone I know to her for the rest of my life :)

Huge thank you’s to Eva Chiou with Red Velvet Occasions and Melody with The Sweet and Saucy Shop. Eva worked tirelessly for months and months helping with the details both large and small.. I dont think she knew what she was getting into but I am sure thankful she hung in there with us all along the way!! Melody is someone you can always count of for shear brilliance. Her cakes and deserts are flawlessly delicous and way super cute! Coming from a guy is a huge compliment!! They were amazing. Also thank you’s to Drew from Shady Tree Fims and Tony and Jillian from Zany Booths. These guys deserve an entire post by themselves they were so awesome so be on the look out for them in the near future…

I want to thank DJ Taso from Atmosphere Entertainment for all the beautiful bistro lighting as well as rocking the party all night for us.. They are the industries best entertainment company by far and completely blew us away by their love for what they do and for their clients. Again if any of you need a DJ or lighting for your event.. please please please contact AE you wont regret it!!

Last but not least.. A HUGE thank you to Josh over at CHIPOTLE..  It took quite a bit of planning but we actually got Chipotle to cater their very first wedding EVER.. We had to though considering that we eat there at leat 3 times a week.. well … at least I do.. we were super proud and honored to be the firsts.. it was a huge hit with our guests!

Ok Now time for the photos.. Here is the start of the day with Kristin getting ready… she is just drop dead gorgeous!!

One of our fav shots of the day.. Kris’s shoes on her grandmas memorabilia box.. This was super sweet and special to Kristin and her mom.

Along with our cotton we fell in love with the bolsa flowers.. made from real wood, we felt would really help add the rustic element we were looking for!

The ladies..

and us..

Probably one of my favorite shots of the day! and although I haven’t seen them all or even close.. I know that this is one of them for sure!! This is right before our first look.

Look it how rad Kristin’s Bouquet is… R I D I C U L O U S

check out the awesome light…

Our awesome programs made by the amazing and talented Lucy from D*LSH. She also did our invites too so you can check those out here. She did an awesome job!

This was my favorite aspect of the day.. Lauryl hand strung all those cotton bolls on fishing line that ran for our entire aisle.. which was about 100 feet long each.. that’s dedication!!

awesome flowers and set up by Eva and Lauryl.. You girls ROCK!! It was absolutely perfect

As some of you know we sponsored the construction of a water well to be drilled in Honduras this march and Kristin and I are actually going to physically drill the well along with Living Water Int’l. We had each of our guests right an encouraging note to the future well recipients as we are going to personlally hand deliver the notes during our trip. The pencils they used to write the notes was part of their thank you gift.

Cakes and mini desserts…Like I said.. FLAWLESS!!  Thanks Melody!!

Our first dance as husband and wife! I love Kris’s face.. she so adorable!!

God delivered HUGE for the big day.. not a single cloud in the sky, air perfectly clean and crisp, snow blankets completely covering the local mountain ranges and the temperature… perfectly brisk… just the way we like it! Honestly only the big guy could pull it off.. and we knew He could! We were so blessed by the day.. Surounded by friends and family, It was such a great experience from start to finish.. As Kristin and I were reflected on our wedding the next day we relized that all our our hearts desires were met and exceeded.. super exceeded.. We were thankful that we saw each other for the first time before the wedding and with just the two of us.. as that was probably one of my favorite, sweetest parts of the day.. The location was gorgeous,  birds chirping and the sound of a little water creek in the background with the sight of impressive old oak trees. The sunlight was present but soft and filtered. The ceremony was priceless and touched our hearts deeply. We ate our food while it was still warm, we talked to as many of our guests as we possibly could and danced for hours unitl the very last dance.. ate our cake, and roasted up some smores.. ummm my favorite!! It was a perfect day. Not a single complaint..

Looking back on the wedding, I noticed that being in the same circumstances as our clinets really opened up a whole new world to us. We have been to hundreds and hundreds of weddings before but never had our own.. I think we will really be able to treasure moments even more and equip us with a different perspective in documenting the love of our future clients. It has really brought us incredible insight that we look forward to incorporate our new experiences into our photography in the future.

Thank you all for your prayers and your presence in making this day something truly specail that we will hold and treaure all the days of our lives.. Lord Bless

By Brandon Kidd | Also posted in Personal | Comments (20)

End of the Year! 2009 RECAP!

December 31, 2009 – 10:10 am

Hi everybody!  I wanted to post a little recap of the year for us here in 2009… We had such an amazing year with even more amazing and wonderful clients! We feel so blessed to have worked with so many special and loving people throughout the year and 2010 looks just as awesome with some really amazing clients and cool weddings on the way..

One of the most amazing things that we feel so blessed to be apart of was the overwhelming support of our new philanthropic campaign. Earlier this last year we launched a new campaign where we donate a portion of each wedding package on behalf of our clients back to a charity of their choice that they felt particularly close to.

Our vision was to give 10% of every package we book back to people in need and the turn out was so amazing that we actually superseded that !! Here is a list of the charities we worked with and supported throughout the year..

Living Water International -World Vision-Toms Shoes – Compassion International -Operation Smile – Hill of Hope

We thank God so much for providing all our clients who made this dream and vision become a reality. By the grace of God we accomplished some pretty awesome things and made the world just a little bit better for a few more people.. Here is a little recap of the gifts and blessings given to other people throughout the year:

We sponsored 7 kids in 3rd world countries to receive surgery for fixing cleft palates and cleft lip and gave them new smiles and happy faces (Operation Smile)

Education for 15 children for 1 year (World Vision)

$1350 for the Horn of Africa food crisis, providing the basic necessities of life (WV and Compassion)

8 chickens – Chickens are easy to raise, and will naturally multiply to impact generations of children. Each family that receives chickens is asked to give back hatched chicks to help another family in need. Chicks require little money, space, or food to thrive and grow — making them an ideal business venture for a single mom or vulnerable family. (WV)

4 goats -Goats nourish hungry children and families with healthy milk, cheese, and yogurt. Goats also give a much-needed income boost by providing offspring and extra dairy products for sale at the market. (WV)

$1900 worth of clothing for kids who are without proper clothing, providing warm jackets for kids in high altitudes and cold climates.. (WV)

$500 to help reach young at risk teens in orange county, ca and provide them with a loving, safe environment to grow up in. (Hill of Hope)

1 dairy cow-  provides some 120,000 glasses of milk in its lifetime to one village,  and extra dairy products for sale at the local market. (WV)

safety/protection and hope for  sexually exploited girls in 3rd world nations. (WV)

2 sheep for wool and money provided by local markets by selling of products. (WV)

providing shoes to kids who are without to prevent soil borne parasites from entering the body (TOMS)

Sponsored 4 kids through world vision for one year providing them with shelter, food, clothing, security and education:

Collins Limua, Nairobi, Kenya age 4,   Elisee Kainda Manyonga: Dem Republic of Congo  Age 4,   Mesay Mamo : Ethiopia, Age 6,   Etania Richard: Haiti, Age 5

And to top off all this wonderful stuff..We had enough of our clients to donate their portion to Living Water Int that we raised enough money to sponsor the construction of a brand new water well in Honduras providing clean drinking water to hundreds if not thousands of people who were previously without before!!!!  We are so excited because Kristin and I are actually getting to participate in this trip next March to see the well be brought to life. We are thrilled because we will be able to document the actual people benefited by  all the contributions and bring back all the photos for you to enjoy! I went to Honduras twice earlier in the year so if your curious to see the photos and what the process is like please feel free to check out those blog posts.. Honduras trip 1 Honduras trip 2

We are just so over whelmed by all the love  and the events fof this year and are so excited to see what God has in store for us next year! So again a HUGE special thanks to all of our clients for helping make this dream come to life and we cant wait to see how to impact the world with all your help in 2010!!  Heres to a great 2009 and an even greater 2010!! We love you all and God Bless!!

By Brandon Kidd | Also posted in Personal, Philanthropic, Uncategorized | Comments (6)

Josh and Leah {Smog Shoppe}

December 29, 2009 – 12:27 am

OK so I wanted to make the last wedding post of the year a good one.. neigh.. a GREAT one!  Meet Josh and Leah.. Leah is a wedding planning extraordinaire from Sweet Pear Events.  You will quickly see why she earned and deserves the title in a few seconds. Ever since the engagement shoot out in Palm Springs at the Viceroy where they got engaged I knew the wedding was going to be a good one.. Fun, hip, stylish and super photogenic. We were going to have a great day! Not to mention we had an all star line up of vendors that day… but what else is to be expected having a coordinator plan her own wedding. The wedding was held at the Smog Shoppe in Culver City. I was so pumped! I have always wanted to shoot there. Its so awesome with tons and tons of fun places to shoot and A M A Z I N G decor.. A hip little venue snuggled in a urban downtown setting. A perfect recipe for amazing photos.. Also I wanted to give a huge shout out to Amanda and Alicia from In The Now Weddings for completely rocking the day. The place was covered from head to toe with incredible design and decor and all the events flowed seamlessly throughout the entire day. They also stayed all the way until the very end and saw to it that every last detail was not overlooked! Truly dedicated and fantastic wedding coordinators..

Ok now for the fun stuff..  the photos.. Honestly.. I was so excited about these photos that I already made a sample album out of them.. haha even before I blogged about it.. but I guess thats not a surprise considering how bad I am at blogging.. ok seriously.. now the photos :) Check out the cool invites and flowers..

I had to blog these two.. these are Josh and Leah’s moms.. they are two of the nicest most hospitable people we have ever encountered at a wedding.. their love and hospitality didnt end on the wedding day and continued to Hawaii where we shot Josh and Leah’s wedding reception the following week.. sneek peeked it but will fully blog it soon.. too many good shoots :) Josh’s mom was having a hard time trying to figure out how to get dressed.. I just thought it was a really sweet moment :)

loved the light in the hotel room..

the first look..

then off to the Smog Shoppe

I LOVE this venue!! check out all the details..

The whole ceremony was done in Korean… being completely non fluent in Korean posed a little difficulty trying to figure out when all the next events were going to take place. So we used our background and familiarity in wedding ceremonies to blindly navigate and position ourselves accordingly to get all the shots.. it was really refreshing and kind of fun actually by keeping us on our toes the entire time :)

I love the portrait session!

check out some more details…

It was an amazing day with lots of fun and awesome photos! Thanks Josh and Leah for making us such a special part of your big day!!

Amazing vendors from the day:

Coordinator:  In The Now Weddings : Alicia and Amanda rocked it!!
Ceremony/reception : Smog Shoppe
Videographer: Weddings by SML
Caterer: Contemporary Catering
Florist: Flower Allie
Hair/Makeup: Kelly Zhang Makeup
Guitarist:  Jason Sulkin

By Brandon Kidd | Comments (21)

Tree Trunk Photo Wall

December 17, 2009 – 6:25 pm

I wanted to post another little sneak peak of our wedding.. Here is the behind the scenes of the construction process of our photo wall.. We are going to use this as the background of our photo booth !    I AM SO O O O Excited!!

When we thought of this idea we had no IDEA the amount of work that lied ahead or what it was going to take to bring this bad boy to life.. after careful planning.. strolling the huge halls of the local Home Depot we collaborated and strategized.. actually… we just bought a bunch of stuff and started playing.. First off I have to give a big thank you to the guys over at Richfield Tree Farm in Yorba Linda for all their help in finding and cutting the wood.. Super awesome guys and they have a great big cut-it-yourself tree farm with over 60 acres!!… My dinkey chainsaw was nothing compared to their MONGO one and got the job done so much faster! if it wasnt for them I think I would still be cutting. Here is what we started with!

a little Gorilla, porter cable, some mdf board, 2×2’s and we were off..

we wanted to make sure that all the trees were different shapes and sizes so we could create a unique and diverse mosaic.

only 4 more consecutive trips to home depot,  2 more trips to the lumber yard and 3 solid days or manual labor later!!! WHaalloaaa!! Photo Wall.. good thing Kristin already agreed we can put it up as our headboard in our new place!! I cant wait to move in together after we are married! its going to be so exciting!

the first photos from our booth..

I think it came out exactly how I imagined.. however long story short… I wouldn’t recommend this project to anyone :) After Kristin saw it she said “ohhh its soo awesome!! do you think you could make another one behind the cake table too…?” and I replied.. “……cricket…….cricket…….” :)

A HUGE thanks for a HUGE investment of time Mr. Matt Gartner with Gartner Photography. One of my good friends, groomsmen/workhorse and other mastermind behind this creation..if it wanst for him I dont think I would have been able to move the several hundred pound wall by my self… literally i think its about 300 lbs total… yikes :)

By Brandon Kidd | Also posted in Uncategorized | Comments (23)

OUR WEDDING INVITATIONS!!!

December 9, 2009 – 3:49 pm

I am sooOOOO excited to post these.. it took a lot of hard work and the D*LSH girls did a fabulous job designing along with my beautiful bride to be with all the little details and assembly! What a project!

I think my favorite is the burlap and cotton since we are going to have these incorporated into our wedding.. these invites give a perfect insight to how we envision our big day to look.. WOW this makes it so real and I am SOOO excited for this day to come! Also thanks to paperwink for our sweet return stamp!

Here are our invites.. take a look and leave a comment if you like them!!

invite10

By Brandon Kidd | Also posted in Personal, Uncategorized | Comments (20)

Derek and Maryjane: Wedding in San Juan Capistrano

November 23, 2009 – 12:40 am

I love being a photographer! Seriously. It brings me so much joy that I honestly have to continually pinch myself to see if I am living in reality. One of the things I love most about photography is the people that it brings into your life and in the ways it does it.. especially from the past.. I mean look at me and Kristin.. Photography was the medium in which God brought Kristin back into my life that allowed us to form a relationship which will last a lifetime. It is so cool! Maryjane a former Aztec and school acquaintance was one of those special cases where we were reunited through her pursuit of a wedding photographer several years down the road.. When she contacted me (along with a couple of my past clients) she said “this isn’t the same Brandon Kidd from High School is is..?” A relationship that would have ended with the graduation of High School now back into existence because we had the opportunity to document their very special day. In fact will now be (what we hope to be at least) a very special part of their lives because we were a special part of their big day. Its such a blessing to be able to serve all our clients and especially our friends in such a fun and unique capacity.

After the engagement shoot I knew that I was going to be stoked for the wedding, and I was right! The day was beautiful and the guests were so fun!  Derek and Maryjane have two of the most fun loving, charismatic personalities I know! They totally love life and wear their hearts on their sleeve..They are honestly so perfect for each other… plus they love country music and wanted it incorporated in their wedding.. I knew it was going to be a great day! Here are some of the photos from the day.. Enjoy!

Maryjane’s little sis working on some last minute toasts..

The handsome groom.. these guys were so much fun.. like herding cats all day. but a lot of fun none the less!!

Both had the same exact expression waiting in anticipation for the first look.. hahaha like 2 peas in a pod!!

Beautiful ceremony location at Marbella Country Club.

I love these shots.. brides maids stealthily scouting out the scene before the ceremony began… :)

I love this moment.. even after the first look.. its just such a sweet moment during the ceremony..

an awesome ceremony then off to the woods for some photos!!

I love their interaction with eachother.. its so fun and genuine

Killer light!

And my fav shot of the day! I love the HUGE tree trunk chunks..

Thanks guys for allowing us to partake in your special day! We were so honored to shoot for you guys and were so blessed by it! We wish you the best in all your future endeavors as hubby and wife!

By Brandon Kidd | Comments (9)