Japanese Garden Wedding Photography | Christy & Mike

February 6, 2012

Good afternoon, Los Angeles! Forecast states that there will be rain this week in Sunny Los Angeles, which means I get a free car wash! I am tempted to leave a bar of soap on the roof of my car and see if the rain will do the rest of the trick.

It has been a while since Christy and Mike’s engagement photography session in Disneyland. Now it is time to finally post their wedding photos from Long Beach Japanese Gardens! It was a sunny afternoon in Long Beach when Christy and Mike tied the knot at Japanese Gardens in Cal State Long Beach. The cool thing about the wedding location here at Japanese Gardens is that the guests did not sit all at one place since there is a huge pond filled with colorful coy right in the middle of the Garden. There were chairs around each side of the pond where everyone had a perfect view of the wedding procession.

Christy and Mike’s wedding started bright and early at a local hotel where the entire wedding party prepped up and pounded A LOT of coffee to kick start their morning. Since the wedding party all prepared and suited up in one suite, they room was so loud and full of life. This made it extremely easy for my job as their wedding photographer since every photo was so lively…and hilarious! After a few cups of coffee in our system, Danny and I had a ball with the wedding party too! After the makeup artist wrapped up the ladies in the wedding party, she finished off with Mike. I suppose the groom had to look pretty too. I think it was Mike’s first time getting makeup done, so the wedding photograph of him below was priceless. Check it out!

Lookin’ good, Mike!

While the wedding party dolled up in their suite, Danny and I took the wedding dress downstairs to the lobby for this cool photo.

If you think a wedding is this painful, just wait until afterward.

Since the boys were ready before the girls, we took a couple wedding portraits of just the guys until the girls were ready for their photo session.

Our first wedding party photograph before we all left to Long Beach Japanese Gardens.

Long Beach Japanese Gardens
Long Beach, CA

Once the wedding party and their family arrived at Long Beach Japanese Gardens, Mike did some final preparations before he walked down the aisle. With all the guests arrived and anxiously waited for the bride, Christy and her dad walked down the aisle all radiant and beautiful. It is always a touching moment when the father gives away his daughter at the wedding. Christy’s dad gave her the biggest and longest hug before he let go.

After the formalities, Mike sealed the deal with a kiss and wrapped up this beautiful wedding.

With the extra time, we ran around Long Beach for some cool wedding photography session.

After we photographed some cool wedding pictures at Long Beach Japanese Gardens, we headed out to Signal Hill to wrap up their wedding photo session. The first wedding photograph below was just too funny to not post up. Christy tried to look more serious and “cool” for the photo, but ended up looking like she was really angry at Mike. Mike just could not stop laughing once he saw this wedding picture. Sorry Christy, I just had to post this one. =D

“1, 2, 3…JUMP! Okay, let’s do this again, but I need everyone to jump at the same time.”

Once Christy and Mike had their grand entrance, they started off their wedding reception with their first dance.

I must admit that Christy’s father’s speech had to be one of the most memorable speeches in my career as a wedding photographer. He pulled up analogies from Star Wars and Star Trek and tied them all seamlessly with the wedding. He also concluded his speech with the famous quote from Spock,”Live long and prosper.” He also threw up the Vulcan hand symbol too.

Before Danny and I wrapped up the wedding photos here in Long Beach, we coordinated with the DJ and had one epic photograph with everyone who attend the wedding.