Charla Blue Photography: san francisco wedding

See Part I HERE.

My sister and her family visited San Fran this last week, and so did another friend. I've been missing that city since my visit last month and have enjoyed reading their posts on Facebook and taking a peek at their photos. So I was prompted to post part two of my travels to San Francisco.

So let me tell you just a bit of a back story why I love this city so. I grew up in the stix of Olympia, Washington. We lived on several acres of property and were many miles from "town" (as we called it). I never knew any different until I was a teenager and transportation became an issue. Before driving, nobody ever wanted to come pick me up because it was so out of the way. It was a bummer and I quickly began to loathe living in the country. My older brother by 10 years lived in Seattle and I lived for the weekend getaways that I could stay with him. He introduced me to city life. I began dreaming of living in the city from those experiences as a teenager. Of skycrapers. And cabs. And people a'bustling. There is such an energy in being in a city. My dream was always to live in Seattle, which I did starting in 1997. By 2000, I was California bound for my current home of Long Beach.

Even now, living in a community that I love dearly....I still miss "the city". A place of skyscrapers, endless places to eat, live performances to see, and a neighborhood for every culture. I love that you can live in the heart of a city and never have to use a car. If it were up to me...I would probably live in San Francisco or New York. There is just something about both of these cities that just make me come alive.

The only thing I ever knew about San Francisco growing up came from a TV commercial, "Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat". Those trollies still hold a place of admiration for me...

Ahhh, Amanda is such a beautiful girl! I'm so happy that she will be shooting all of my 2011 weddings with me. We are only two weddings in to 2011 and we have already had so much fun and funny stories to tell.

We pretty much WALKED this city. We were too impatient to wait for our turn on the trolley...so we just walked to the top of Hyde Street. It was a hike!

But the view was well worth it.

Of course we had to walk the Crookedest Street.

Once again, the view was stunning.

There is something about this next photo that I just LOVE.

The colors, shapes, textures...are all pretty much awesome!

There is so much character in their homes, doors, and entrances.

My favorite hour of sun down. A magical hour when the sky is an awesome shade of blue.

I was telling Amanda about this hour and she was so excited to see it captured on the back of her camera too.

Day Two: Wedding Day - Amanda & I in the photo booth at the wedding we captured together. Aren't we cute?

Day Three - The Painted Ladies. Having loved John Stamos for years, we had to visit "The Painted Ladies" that appeared in the opening credits of Full House.

San Francisco City Hall in the distance. So pretty.

I'm already conspiring when I can return to San Fran. So much more to see! Who wants to join me?

So I kinda did things backward with this wedding. I posted a sneak on my blog and their preview on Facebook and their SmugMug galleries since we were traveling. But I really want to share some of these images here on the blog too since they are some of my fave. I mentioned in this post how I connected with this couple. I still can't get over what a fun wedding it was.

I've been following Erica & Nick's extreme Honeymoon adventure in New Zealand on Facebook since their wedding. One of Nick's first post from NZ was that he & Erica did a sky jump TWICE from a 700ft tower. That's my kind of fun & adventure! Congrats you two! Here's a peek into their wedding day...

Gorgeous sisters with incredibly BLUE eyes....

This is Erica with her family home as a back drop...

Amanda captured these next two images which are pretty much awesome in my book!

This vintage taxi is THE taxi from the television series Taxi & Friends.

Erica & Nick wed at the St. Francis Yacht Club.

It's pretty much Erica's home away from home, having grown up on their family sail boat.

Their wedding revolved around a nautical theme, starting with their house flag.

This is our 'house flag', a tradition in the nautical world to have a flag to fly from your family's vessel. Though we don't own a boat, we hope to one day and are just getting a head start on the flag front!

The symbols on the flag all represent something about us and our relationship. The white character to the left is a K inside the letter D to represent Kaplan and Deuyour. The sun is Gold, for the Colorado Buffalos, and to symbolize us both being Leo's as our astrological sign. The plane is Crimson, for the Washington State Cougars, and represents us meeting abroad, our long distance relationship and engagement at the airport.

Erica and Nick opted for a "first look" after having witnessed Melly & Chas' Wedding. Erica was must struck by the fact that they were instantly at ease after the first look. We had a ton of time just to capture the two of them, which was awesome!

The wedding party...

For reasons I'm still not sure of, no music came on for Erica's stroll down the aisle. So, in impromptu style Erica and her dad started humming the wedding march "dum dum dum da..." It made for a memorable moment.