I made my first trek out to Honolulu in December 2007. I was ready to take the next step in my photography career, and wanted to get images that would enable me to connect with clients getting married in exotic destinations. In preparation for the trip, I googled my little heart out in an attempt to connect with other vendors, photographers, and planners in the wedding industry who might help introduce me to the island or help me plan some photo shoots. I spent lots of time emailing to reach out to locals, and for the most part got very little response.

When I arrived in Hawaii, I stopped in at a place called The Wedding Café. It was a new concept – basically a marketplace for couples to come and review promotional materials from all sorts of vendors. The marketing for the Wedding Café seemed perfect – simple, elegant, and able to stand the line between classic and hip – and I loved their directory, WHITE, printed on heavy stock with a clean design.

In “WHITE” I found a profile about Elizabeth Uehara. In her self-description, Elizabeth talked about her multicultural heritage and how she loves to be a part of weddings. I remember emailing her from my room, and being delighted at a very prompt, very helpful, and very sincere response. The next thing I knew, Elizabeth had arranged a day full of photo shoots for me and provided the hair, makeup, and styling for everyone pro bono – in addition to using her connections with a florist and dress shops to get everyone outfitted. I was impressed by the effortlessness of her arrangements, as well as her enthusiasm for the project. She wasn’t overly concerned with compensation, but rather turned the event into a fun and lighthearted adventure.

I fell in love with Elizabeth that day, and asked her to fly out to San Francisco to do my hair and makeup for our wedding (admittedly also to save me from the onslaught of Persian aunties who work in salons!).

If you’re getting married in Hawaii and looking for a dependable, professional, fun, and talented local hair and makeup artist for your wedding, give Elizabeth a call. She will hook you up. (Elizabeth Uehara, beautigoddess@gmail.com, 808-203-7398)

This couple lucked out and got us to take their christmas card photos for them, after watching us with our fancy cameras photographing each other around sunset (see other recent post).

(Thanks for that extra round of drinks, guys. Send us that photo and we’ll put it up here. What are your names, anyway?)

A long exposure from our seats at Dukes. I set my camera on the ground, with the fisheye lens, and left the shutter open for 20 seconds.

These photos are from each of us taken during the same five minute period.

First impressions.

I’ve known Amy for a couple of years now through the online wedding photographers’ community. I didn’t know much about her aside from her thoughtful posts and intelligent responses in community discussions.

Over the course of 2008 I got to know Amy a lot better. I met her in person for the first time one day before our wedding. Amy flew alone all the way from Wisconsin to San Francisco to hang out with a bunch of people she had never met and celebrate our wedding. I was impressed with her boldness, generosity, and willingness to take a chance. She was also fantastic to fill in with Marina when we had some family photo chaos during the Sofreh Aghd section of our wedding

As a former professional dancer, Amy was totally at home crazy dancing with all of our Persian family. Everyone loved her and wanted to set her up with their sons even though she is happily living the American Dream, complete with handsome husband and cute son. (I think they actually have a white picket fence in their yard.)

Amy and I are very different. Our professional work is pretty much opposite. When I tend to be painfully direct and unfashionably inclined, she is a graceful, stylish, classically tempered beauty. When we work together shooting a wedding, it’s really interesting to see how each of us complement the other person’s work and how we challenge the other to consider an alternate viewpoint.

I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Amy G and I am looking forward to spending some reflective time together having adventures and refreshing after a year of growth and change in our personal and professional lives.

This is Amy. She’s fantastic.