Julie and Chun

I've had a string of referrals from a San Diego community of Chinese heritage. Julie and Chun are my latest wedding from this group, and by now I'm starting to recognize all the faces - and they recognize me too. After a church ceremony, we traveled to the renowned Chinese restaurant The Pearl, where I was invited to sit for dinner at the table of the bride's coordinators (one was a previous client of mine), and was give the best ten course meal of my life. After proving my ability to use chopsticks, the table made a game of seeing what I'd actually eat, including jellyfish (it's like crunchy jello) and red bean dessert soup (with lotus seeds, it was delicious).

Rain was scheduled, but here's how the day started off instead:

I just love this picture.

I'm a documentary photographer. My focus is not formal portraiture, which is why it's not often featured in the work I show, but at my clients' request I'll always provide it. Julie and Chun wanted to spend a bit of time just the two of them for portraits.

Their emcees ran the crowd through a series of games, spoken in Cantonese. I wasn't always sure what was happening, but their expressions did a good job of saying it all.

They toasted with every table.