sara + jeff ~ wedding photography

Oh where do I start… my lovely cousin Sara (of this previous post) was married this past Saturday in Berkeley, CA to the fantastic Mr. Jeff Durston. I was absolutely honored to be asked to stand up with Sara (alongside her sister, Emily). Therefore this post is not a typical “wedding photography” post for me – since I was actually in the wedding. (i.e. There are prep-shots, lots of detail pictures, some pics of the ceremony taken by my awesome husband, and then a few at the reception I snapped after the photographer left…since in the meantime I was busy having a great time…) 🙂

Anyway, I digress… The day started with a fantastic breakfast at the restaurant in Hotel Durant and then I had a nice leisurely day getting ready with the beautiful bride-to-be, her sister, her mom & the always adorable JoJo. 🙂 Once we were all ready to go Sara & Jeff had their first look at the hotel so we were all able to walk over to the ceremony site on campus together. This was one of the coolest things I’ve ever witnessed… as Sara, Jeff, Emily & I walked to the wedding site the soon-to-be newlyweds were greeted with screaming, clapping and shouts of “congratulations” the entire way… including an entire bus full of people sticking their heads out the windows to yell and sing the tune, “Here Comes the Bride.” I was moved to tears as we made our way because it was truly amazing to see how kind and wonderful people can be in times like this.

The happy tears didn’t start or end there either… as they were pretty much the theme of the day. The ceremony was officiated by Jeff’s dad, Bill, who did such an amazing job I cannot even begin to do him justice by talking about it here. Together with Sara and Jeff, he came up with a ceremony that was completely personal and absolutely ‘them.’ Bill read words that both the bride and groom had written about each other…. why they love each other, what they think marriage means, and other beautiful things of this nature. The thing that touched me the most (and I think a lot of people there) was one thing (among many) that Jeff said about Sara – that he loves her because she doesn’t recline her chair on an airplane because she feels bad for the person behind her. This little thing he’s noticed about Sara absolutely says, in one example, what a fantastic person she is in all aspects of her life, and the fact that he took note of it speaks volumes about what kind of person he is as well.

As you can see, I could go on forever and ever about these two and how perfect they are for each other, and what a beautiful day it was… but instead, I will let the photos do the talking from here on out: