Robert Valdes Wedding Photographer San Francisco Bay Area

Marisa and Joe got married at the fantabulous Spinnaker Restaurant in sunny Sausalito, CA. I’ve shot quite a few weddings at the Spinnaker in my 20 year career. I’d say I’ve been there at least half a dozen times. I’ve always tried to get on their preferred vendor list for wedding vendors. Maybe with this truly amazing wedding I photographed, I can finally achieve this goal.

The day actually started with a bridal prep coverage at a nearby hotel. After that, the ceremony AND reception commenced at the Spinnaker. If you are ever in town, Spinnaker Restaurant has the best seafood in Marin County, period!!!!

Marisa just left me a glowing 5 star review on YourBridalPlanner.com. Please  click here to read it.

AND THEN CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE GALLERY OF WEDDING IMAGES FROM THE WEDDING OF MARISA AND JOE AT THE SPINNAKER RESTAURANT IN SAUSLITO!!!!!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE GALLERY OF WEDDING IMAGES FROM THE WEDDING OF MARISA AND JOE AT THE SPINNAKER RESTAURANT IN SAUSLITO!!!!!

Here’s a jolly ‘ole wedding I found that I photographed waaaayyyy back in 2006!. The exact date was Saturday August 26, 2006. This was a great wedding that started with Groom’s prep and Bridal prep at the Hotel St. Claire in San Jose, CA. It’s common for couples to get married at St Joseph’s church [where this couple got married] and have your reception either here at the Hotel St. Claire or up the street at the Fairmont Hotel.

In any case, Joanna & Joseph had their reception at the Fabulous Hotel St. Claire, a venue I have been proud to work at least a dozen times in my 20 year career. Here are some of the amazing wedding pictures that I took that day. If you would like to see more, please send me an email and we can make arrangements to meet and for me to show them to you. Comments to follow pics, enjoy…..

We began with pictures of the Groom in the Lobby of the Hotel.

Yes, this is a good idea.

The father of the bride. I always strive for natural poses in a natural setting even if the setting is unnatural.

The bride expressed to me that she really wanted to see the details of her dress.

The girls are horsing around before the wedding.

I love getting organic and natural journalistic wedding shots such as this one below.

The mother of the bride passed down a ring to the Bride. It was a very emotional exchange.

Some poses over by the window. I use natural light whenever possible to achieve a more organic nature to me wedding photographs.

Ok so now we are over at St Joseph’s church in downtown San Jose, CA. The church is right up the street from Hotel St. Claire. It s a beautiful church with a huge DOME. I have been fortunate enough to work here at least a dozen times in my 20 year career as a wedding photographer.

It gets pretty dark in there and they do not allow any flash for the ceremony. Most catholic churches do not allow flash for the wedding. However, from this far away, a flash would not do any good. I rely on my FAST lenses and steady hand to get little stolen moments such as this.

Ok, this shot is up from the balcony. Sometimes, they don’t open the balcony so I was happy to get these from the top.

After the wedding I took them over to this little square PLAZA like area, I forgot what it’s called. Anyway, this was a fun couple and I got many natural style wedding photos.

So back at the Hotel St. Claire. This is a picture of the front of Hotel St. Claire from across the street.

The room looked fabulous as usual. The Hotel St. Claire has a great wedding and banquet manager.

A shout out to my buddy Adrian from Sound In Motion DJ’s. I worked with this guy many times. Him and his partner KING RAFFI. We’re all old timers in this biz…lol

The first dance of the bride and groom were very emotional. I got a combination of close ups [like this one] and wide angle.

They cut the cake and that was pretty much the end of the night.

I hope you liked all these wedding photos from way back in 2006. Just goes to show that I have been doing great work for many years. My style has changed a bit from this time. And I have a new camera since then. So my quality is much higher now as well. But I think it’s great to look back every once in a while. It’s important to know where you been, in order to have a clear vision of where you are going!

This is a wedding I photographed back in 2007. Sarah and Joel at the Crystal Springs Golf Course in Millbrae, CA. The wedding division of the Golf Course is run by Wedgewood Banquet and Event Centers. They operate a handful of wedding venues in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

They have a really nice facility there for both your wedding ceremony and wedding reception. The ceremony takes place out aways up at a Gazebo as you will see in the pics. The reception is indoors back at the venue. It’s very easy and convenient to go from the ceremony site, to the reception site.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE GALLERY OF WEDDING IMAGES FROM WEDGEWOOD BANQUET

Cinta Salon in San Francisco, CA is a popular place for brides to get their hair done on their wedding day. I recently had the pleasure of taking wedding photographs for a bride who was getting her hair done there. It’s rare that a bride wants this type of coverage, so I was excited at the prospect of capturing an additional element of the bridal day of preparation.

This is a wedding at the Deer Ridge Vineyards in the Livermore Valley. The sun was really doing a number on my exposures so I had to be extra careful not to blow out the highlights. Fortunately, I shoot in RAW format which gives me some leeway in post to make adjustments.

This is a clip that is featured on my wedding video blog. It is a wedding video taken at the Ruby Hill Golf Club in Pleasanton, CA. We do alot of wedding photos and videos at the Ruby Hill.

here’ss my favorite pic o’ the month. ENJOY

p.s. u can c this entire wedding gallery from Clos LaChance on my website

Do you like organic and naturalistic wedding photos? If so, then you might want to take a look at these wonderful wedding photos I took of Nicole and Sam. They are a wonderful couple who got married at the San Rafael, CA EMBASSY SUITES hotel on McGinnis Parkway. If you are going to shoot a wedding entirely indoors, then this is the hotel you want it to be. All of the elements came into perfect play and the stars were certainly aligned. Great wedding location, great looking couple [oh the bride...don't get me started WOW!]. You will see by these wedding pictures that they had the most wonderful time and truly enjoyed their wedding day!

The day started with the bride coming down the elevator to meet the groom. I call this my ‘FIRST GLANCE’. This is something that I set up prior to knowing that the couple wishes to see each other prior to the ceremony on the wedding day.

Keep in mind that I take over one thousand wedding images on your day. So what you are seeing here is only the TIP OF THE EYEBERG so to speak. The good news is that since the wedding albums run 20 to 30 pages, it is very easy to pick out only your favorite pictures…like what I have done here….

Believe it or not, this was only me shooting. I didn’t not have an associate photographer with me this day. Even without, I am still able to get many different angles for the bride.

Ok, so after they had their first glance and exchanges kisses and whatnot, we started doing posed shots. Their bridal party was quite large, which is why we started a few hours earlier. We managed to get all of the posed shots out of the way before the ceremony. This means the couple is able to enjoy the wedding more and mingle with the guests during the cocktail hour.

What a lovely couple.

This is one of my trademark shots. Well not really but I do this angle a lot.

Did I mention that the groom is PERSIAN? I love doing Multi Cultural Weddings. I learn a lot about different ethnicities and cultures. Experiencing it first hand like this really takes you off to another place. The power of love and spirit is AWESOME!

The bride comes down the aisle! I take MANY shots of this sequence! And I love seeing the grooms reaction! Even with the first glance, you can feel the emotion on Sam’s face.

Got some great journalistic shots during the ceremony. They exchanged such passionate looks. I felt a shiver going down my spine. Well, maybe more like a tingle.

Below: one of my favorite shots! Persian weddings are much fun.

The ceremony ran for about 45 minutes. The kiss at the end was very passionate.

CAN YOU FEEL THE JOY?

After the ceremony, we did some really quick shots outside. However, the couple really wanted to enjoy their wedding so we didn’t spend more than 10 minutes taking a few shots in the natural light.

The ceremony was off the hook. Anybody that knows about Persian weddings knows that the dancing is insane. And everybody knows the words to all the songs! Lots of arms in the air and everyone having the best time! I actually even sang some karaoke. Unbeknownst to the bride, when they played the Journey song, Don’t Stop Believin’, I grabbed the mic from the DJ and was singing it too. Some people didn’t notice but when they did, they were like…. YAH… YOU GO GUY!

The couple truly had a wonderful time and it’s weddings like this that make me want to do this again and again. After 19+ years I still have not lost my LOVE OF being a wedding photographer.

I took almost 1500 shots of the wedding. I will be posting more RECEPTION shots later. This is all I could gather for now.

I had a great time working with the other wedding vendors that day.

Sean and Christine are a great couple who really got me excited about working with them. They were enthusiastic from the get-go, and the E-pics session earlier in the year turned out spectacular. Their wedding reception was held at Murietta’s Well in Livermore, CA. I feel very lucky at being able to shoot a wedding at the Murietta’s Well. It is a great location to have your wedding and spacious enough to accomodate large wedding receptions. But before the reception obviously was the ceremony and even before that, the bridal prep session at the bride’s home in the very early morning hours.

Here’s a few of my very favorite wedding images from their special day starting with the aforementioned bridal prep or pre ceremony session.

The ceremony was held at the Church of the Assumption in San Leandro California. It was a great church to shoot a wedding. Not too much ambient light but just enough on the altar.

The reception was at a place called Murieta’s WELL Winery in Livermore
 

They were really looking forward to my edgy style, so I took it to the limit. I came away with some of my most stunning work.

This shot below will most likely become my new “MARQUEE SHOT”

I love this picture of the bride and groom running through the vineyards at Murietta’s Well Winery in Livermore, CA.

I am able to capture the mood and essence of your wedding in LOW LIGHT while still getting crystal clear images with little to no blur as I’m not dragging the shutter so much, in favor of using a higher ISO which the new digital cameras handle VERY WELL!

For the dancing, using a backlight can’t be beat. I always get great background in my images which makes them standout above the rest.

Keep in mind this is only the very best of Sean and Christine. I shot literally a thousand pictures. If you like what you see here, I would love the opportunity to show you more. So please contact me right away as my availability for 2009 is extremely limited.

Contact me if you want to see all of the journalistic wedding photography from this wedding. I can show you the cake cutting, garter and bouquet toss or any other shot.

The process of refining the final image is an integral part of my workflow. As an expert image designer, I have been exposed to PHOTOSHOP since version 1. My ability with the tool is maximum…the results of which you see in this RAW AND TWEAKED category which is the MOST VIEWED on the Blog.

This amazing wedding shot of a bride standing at a window was taken at the Wente Vineyards in Livermore. I love this shot alot. I use it on my business card.