Weddingbee Blog

I haven’t really told you much at all about our photographers thus far. That’s a shame - they’re first friends, second fabulous photographers.

Mr. Bear Cub and I asked my friends from college to photograph our wedding. I know this doesn’t work for everyone (they aren’t exactly “Uncle Bob” with a new DSLR & kit lens), but for us it worked out just right.

In college (at USC) I was a member of the climbing club. Los Angeles is a great place for rock climbing! There’s Point Dume (on the beach!), Malibu Creek State Park (Planet of the Apes, anyone?), Echo Cliffs, & so many more awesome places it’d be silly for me to list them all. Long story short, I had a blast with my fellow climbers! One of my friends in the climbing club, Susánica Tam, was getting serious about photojournalism - she took her camera everywhere! Susánica especially liked to capture action shots of us climbing in ridiculously gorgeous places, like Owens River Gorge and Joshua Tree. After graduation, she became a sports photographer, especially for rock climbing.

Did I tell you I nearly completed a double major in French in college?

(It boiled down to a semester studying astronomy in Chile or a semester studying in France!) I got to know Jonathan Moore in several of my upper-division French classes (he was also in the climbing club with me & Susánica). By the time we graduated, I knew he was actively pursuing a career in sports photography.

When Mr. Bear Cub and I started planning our wedding, I began to see how beautiful wedding photography could be. It’s kind of redic - you’re basically paying a PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER to make you into a model and paparazzi-shoot the entire day. Um… heck yes I want to be a model. Who doesn’t? Make me perty!

But ho-lee cow professional wedding photography is expensive! The Bear Cubs’ salmon stock isn’t all that bountiful - Mr. BC said we didn’t need professional photography. He said we could do fine with just our friends’ pics.

Haha! Srsly??

OK, deal Mr. Party Pooper. I’ll ask our friends to shoot our wedding.

Luckily, when I asked Susánica if she would be interested in photographing our wedding, she told me she was transitioning from sports photography to wedding photography, and she’d love to shoot our wedding! And when she suggested Jonathan come along as a second shooter, I knew we’d made the right choice. Both Jonathan and Susánica are very talented sports photographers & photojournalists - it was obvious that their style of shooting would translate well to wedding photography! They are both working very hard to grow their wedding photography businesses - hopefully you’ll see through their photos the talent and hard work I saw when I asked them to shoot our wedding.

A few months before our wedding, a little dessert named Mrs. Cherry Pie asked if she could come to my wedding with her husband Mr. Cherry Pie. Mrs. Cherry Pie was totally one bee blogger I followed religiously - I was thrilled to have her come to our wedding! I knew she was bringing her camera, but I didn’t realize she was going to take so many wonderful pictures! Plus (even though I was super busy!) I had a great time getting to know her more - she’s very natural behind a camera, and makes you feel like your best friend in 2 seconds!

I wanted to take the time to tell all of you about our photographers a little more, because they were so much more than photographers. They were our friends first, and awesome photographers second. I never felt uncomfortable in front of the lens, because I was already comfortable with the dude (or dudette!) behind the lens. We cracked jokes, shared stories, commiserated together about crazy last-minute wedding crap, and they took care of me.

And, they took some pretty bad-ass pics of our wedding.

How did you choose your wedding photographer?