Emily & Mike’s San Diego Unique Session

As if we didn’t have enough reasons to want to shoot as much as possible in California… we got this amazing session from there as well!  When we found out that Mike and Emily were getting married in San Diego, we thought it would be awesome to get a chance to shoot them there more than once since they were doing so much work to have their wedding in such an amazing place!  They loved the idea of doing a Unique Session the day after their wedding so we started planning it!

The first place we went was Balboa Park.  I was hesitant about the location until Scottie showed me a picture of the most fantastic Fairy Tale Tree EVER!  Then I couldn’t wait to get a crack at a photo like that!  As it turned out… we got it!

(For those of you who know about our precious, giant tree they had to cut down in front of our place… apparently it was in the same family as this one, so this is probably what the roots underground looked like!)

I can’t even say enough about what a good sport these 2 were… particularly Emily in her heels and dress!  She climbed over those roots like a pro.  To give you an idea of how difficult it was, this was on a steep incline (more so than it looks) and some of those roots were so big that when I straddled them, my feet didn’t touch the ground!  Thank you guys for allowing me to get one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken!

We got more than one actually (I just don’t think any can beat that top one)!

Here are some of the others from Balboa Park…

(This one is perfect because as it turns out, she LOVES daisies!  I wish we could say we planned that, but really the park chose to plant daisies, so they get the credit!)

(I like this one because it looks like fall and we don’t get much of that in AZ!)

(This is Scottie’s favorite one… favorite one from the park at least)!

After Balboa, we went to a place that they considered doing their ceremony at.  Although it is SUPER beautiful there, they couldn’t do it because the tide was a little scary!  This was the main place that Emily totally rocked it!  Walking down very high and steep stairs in her heels, climbing unbelievably slippery rocks (people in normal shoes were falling left and right!), and holding up her white dress so it didn’t get dirty… she did it all without complaining once!  Oh yeah, and it was FREEZING with a capital F!  But it was oh so beautiful!

(all the green on the rocks represents slippery landmines!)

(These are the shoes that survived it all!)

(OK, so apparently her shoes didn’t survive quite ALL of it… it looks like they got vetoed right about now)!

(These are 2 of my absolute favorites from the day)!

The third place that we went to shoot was a place that Scottie and I found the day before their wedding when we went looking for shooting locations.  Thank you God for making so many fantastic places so near each other!!

(As you can see, it was also freezing here!)

At this point we were all extremely exhausted, not to mention hungry, but we decided to make the most of the day and just push through!  So we made one last trip to a new photo location.  We went down to the Gas Lamp Quarter (aka the cool part of downtown San Diego) to get a few last shots!

Overall, it was a fantastic day and we couldn’t be happier with the results.  Thanks again Mike and Emily for being so up for adventure and experimentation!  You were both amazing and we had a blast experiencing all this with you! Click to see the rest of the photos from Mike and Emily’s Unique Session!  Once you’re done with that, click to see Mike and Emily’s wedding photos too!