Jennifer & Lucas met at law school, and he forever was in love with a girl who saw him as “just a friend”.

During a trip for a law school oralist competition they were working on together, Jennifer came to the realization that her goofy friend was in fact the love of her life, and from there the seeds were planted for a stunning vineyard wedding.

That’s where I come into the story…

The day started out pretty relaxing, all of the women together doing hair and makeup, hanging out and drinking yummy beverages!

Meet Jennifer’s little sister – she has a big role to play in today’s wedding and Jennifer made she that her little sis got every bit as much attention as the bride!

We all have our little quirks, and Jennifer is no exception!  She has a shoe fetish.  Then again, what stylish woman doesn’t have a shoe fetish?  Recognizing that there is a problem is the first step to recovery.  The second step?  Buy lots of pretty shoes!!!  In the end, Jennifer couldn’t decide between these 2 shoes, so she wore one set for the ceremony and the second set for the reception.

Showing off the wedding bands to me and her bridesmaids.  When Lucas proposed, he created a quirky journal with terrible stick figure drawings in his sloppy lawyer handwriting or all the different things they had done together and all of the different things he loved about her.  Reading it made me cry it was so adorable!!!  The last part of this Journal had a picture of him with the ring, and a cutout for the ring box.  This is probably the most heartfelt proposal I have come across!

The bride and groom chose to have their wedding at gorgeous family-owned estate of Wilson Creek Winery in Temecula CA.  I left the girls getting ready to go meet up with the guys at the winery, who would all be dressed and ready to go take groomsmen pictures!!!

Or, maybe not….

So the groomsmen aren’t ready, but I’m sure the bridesmaids and bride are all set for their turn for pictures, right?

  no worries, we’ll get all the pictures we need after the ceremony then!

Lucas then surprises Jennifer by sending a messenger to her with new earrings – Lucas, I think she likes them!

The guests take a shuttle and make their way to the Merlot Mesa, right in the heart of the vineyard.

It was the most perfect and beautiful sunset ceremony!

Unfortunately for me, it got very dark, very quickly!  I wanted to make sure that we could still see the beauty of the vineyards, and so my shutter speed is getting longer, and longer….

Here are are at 1/15th of a second!

And here we are at 1/6th of a second!  [Yes, I can hand hold at 1/6th - I have a very steady grip!]

Jennifer and Lucas hop in the back of their limo in the darkness and we raced off to the reception!

Not pictured: My terrifying thrill ride on the side of a golf cart desperately trying to not drop my 30lbs of gear!  You know what is not in the heart of a pristine vineyard in the middle of the night?

Streetlamps!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 9:39 am and is filed under Destination Weddings, Weddings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.