Robert Valdes Wedding Photographer San Francisco Bay Area

I shot a wedding at Murietta’s Well Winery last year and it was amazing. This Wente property really impressed me. Upon arrival I found that many photo ops! They are even using one of my amazing wedding photos on their official website.

If you recall, this was the wedding of Christine and Sean. I took so many great wedding pictures that day and the bride and groom really enjoyed them. In fact, they even left me some rave reviews on various wedding websites. Click here for more information about the reviews they left for my wedding photographer here.

well whataya know! that’s our buddy MARK WELCH from MARK WELCH ENTERTAINMENT in the picture coaching the groom. I’ve known Mark for years now and I highly recommend him to any bride who needs a great wedding disc jockey.

If you haven’t been to the Ralston Hall in Belmont, CA for a wedding or any other type of special event, you are missing out on some amazing land and property. The MANSION that is the Ralston Hall is so elegantly appointed, it harkens back to the early 1900’s in it’s style and decor.

I feel very fortunate to have been able to work at the Ralson Hall doing wedding photography and wedding videography. I have photographed many weddings there and have shot many wedding videos at the Ralston Hall.

The property is laid out as follows: You drive up a long driveway and see a huge lawn and massive fountain in the front. The wedding ceremony typically takes place out in the front lawn, however in some cases like in the winter, the Ralston Hall has the ceremonies inside the main Grand Ballroom.

The orientation of the ceremony will be dictated by how many guests are to be seated. For instance, a smaller wedding will go straight from the Mansion down the stairs and have your wedding ceremony in front of the huge Water Fountain. For larger weddings such as Sophia & Paul [see picture above] you go down the stairs, make a left walk down, turn right and then back up the aisle so that you are in front of the water fountain but long ways on the lawn.

This wedding at the Ralston Hall was absolutely beautiful. We got many great wedding pictures on this day.

However, my main goal is the show the layout of your wedding reception at the Ralston Hall. So the following pictures are typical DETAIL SHOTS that a second or associate wedding photographer might be shooting whilst the primary wedding photographer does all the family and formal wedding portraits.

Here are some great shots of the main banquet room inside the Ralston Hall. I believe they call it the Grand Ballrooom.

They put the cake in the room that’s just outside of the Grand Ballroom.

Dancing commences in the Grand Ballroom. There is enough room for a band or large DJ set up. The ambient lighting looks very natural and makes for some great backgrounds.

This last shot below is one of my Marquee Shots. I love this shot. This wedding picture taken at the Ralston Hall in Belmont, CA kind of sums up our wedding photography style. Super fine, photo journalistic expee-alidocious LOL

Kari and Shawn are the most wonderful couple who got married at the Wente Vineyards in Livermore, CA. I had the pleasure of recieving their inquiry. At that time, I was still advertising on TheKnot.com so the found me through that wedding web site. I made the numbers work for them which resulted in us commencing to do business with one another. Here are some of the fantastic wedding photos I took at Kari and Shawn’s wedding.

Please note that I like as much natural light as possible. I take a more ‘ORGANIC’ approach with my wedding photography.

OK I have to admit, that I don’t own this lens. The father of the bride, believe it or not, was the owner of this awesome Nikon fish eye lens. I would kill for this lens. But I guess I got lucky because I didn’t have to as he didn’t have any problems with me using the lens through out the day.

I do like fish eye lenses so the reason I don’t have one has nothing to do with a dislike. In fact, I can’t think of a reason that I don’t have one, other than I have never gotten around to ever buying one. I have plenty of space in my carrying case. I do have a nice wide angle that doesn’t do the fish-eye thingy….ok I’m starting to go off in a tangent….’nuff of me ramblin’ – on to the pics…

As you know we always try and film the bride coming out of the limo and going into where the wedding ceremony is going to be. This pic is taken in front of St. Joseph’s Cathedral in San Jose, CA. LOL my associate is in the background there taking the bride as she walks up. I could have easily erased him from the photo. Probably, if the bride chose the image for an album he would be erase. But for my purposes here it’s not crucial.

Wedding photo from inside of St. Joseph’s Cathedral during the wedding ceremony. The fish eye really came in handy on this one. I’m glad the father of the bride let me use it.

St. Joseph’s Cathedral has an incredible dome on top. This truly is one of the most awesome’ist churches I have ever had the privelage of shooting a wedding. Keep in mind I also got many close ups but for this purposes, I mainly wanted to show off the fish eye lens.

Details shots….gotta love them detail shots…….

The groom was looking quite dapper. So by now we are at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose, CA. Actually right down the street from the church. It’s so convenient that everybody walks from the church to the Fairmont for the wedding reception. I found this nice little spot just out of the North Entrance on the side of the cause-way. The lighting was quite good. The groom had an nice, organic, natural look about him.

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Ok so now inside the Fairmont Hotel’s Club Regent Room. It’s just to the left as you enter the Hotel from the main entrance. This room has a stage and is quite large. I believe it holds about 300 guests. LOL, I just checked their web site and my guess was correct. It fits 300 guests. Here is a blurb from Fairmont’s web site

Club Regent
The 3800-square-foot Club Regent is octagonal-shaped and features a built-in stage. Slightly elevated balconies circling the perimeter of the room provide excellent sight lines to the stage below. Greco-Roman murals grace the walls to create a very unique and versatile space. Perfect for meetings up to 300 guests.

These are the kinds of quick and dirty shots I get as I cover your wedding reception. I know the term ‘quick and dirty’ sounds derrogatory, but what it means is simply, that I don’t spend alot of time doing these types of shots. In fact, I’m bascially just making the rounds of the room…..snapping away.

I don’t own the fish-eye, but if enough of my brides request it, I will invest in one. The wide angle I do have is nice as well. You would get similar angle and similar quality to what you see here.

awe, those detail shots of the wedding cake. I try and always use natural light. After all, I bill myself as an ORGANIC and edgy wedding photographer. Which means, I like things natural, including the light. Of course I use flash too, but the trick is to make it look natural.

I hope you enjoyed this tour of the fish-eye lens along with wedding images of St. Joseph’s Church and the Fairmont Hotel, both in San Jose, CA.

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!

I got hired to be the wedding photographer for a wedding at the Auberge Du Soleil in Napa Valley.

Napa Valley is stunning enough but when you get the Auberge you are even more stunned as the view from the Balcony is nothing short of incredible.

This wedding was actually from a few years back. I was surprised to find it wasn’t on my blog. I think it got lost in the conversion when I switched servers a couple years ago.

I really enjoyed this bride. She was up for almost anything and instructed me to get as EDGY wedding photography as possible. I like it when a Bride trusts her wedding photographer enough to give him full creative license. Hence shots like below.

The kids DESTROYED the designated ‘kids room’. A wedding should always have a ‘kids room’ especially if the wedding is more lavish and high end and held at a place like the Auberge.

Pictures [among  other things] were falling off the wall.

I actually got a whole host of different styles of wedding photography at this wedding. What I have shown you here barely touches the tip of the ice-berg in terms of what I acheive time and time again, without FAIL on EVERY SHOOT!

I think if you are looking for pictures of a wedding at Auberge Du Soleil than my blog is a great place to start! Here’s a link to some more wedding photos taken at the Auberge Du Soleil Napa Valley.

Special Thanks to all the other wedding vendors that helped make this date a success!

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

Here are the rest of those images I shot at a wedding that took place at the Deer Ridge Vineyards in Livermore, CA.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE GALLERY OF WEDDING IMAGES AT DEER RIDGE VINEYARD!!!!

If you want to see the COMPLETE wedding photographs please CLICK HERE

I got some great pics of the San Francisco Bay [amongst a great many other shots] aboard the Commodore Cruise and Event vessel.

I always have a great time when I’m shooting a wedding on a boat. As you can see I excel at getting the landscape shots of San Francisco from the bay.

 

Please follow this link to open a FLASH gallery of wedding photos that I took at a recent wedding [January 2010] at the Dublin Ranch Golf Course in Dublin, CA.

click here to open the gallery of wedding images taken at the Dublin Ranch Golf Course