Susan and Sam's Wedding

I photographed Susan and Sam's wedding yesterday.

The ceremony was held on the fourtieth floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in San Francisco. The had two rooms in the hotel. Johnny Nagano and I got there at 9:05 and slowly made our way up to their rooms at 9:20 am.

The ceremony began at about 11:15am and was very simple. The fourtieth floor patio had a great view of the Transamerica building and the Coit Tower. Though it was in the shadow and a bit cold for a lot of people. Photographically wise, it was tough with the bright background and ceremony in the shadow. The beautiful background was blown out.

After the family formals, a reception followed down at the second floor restaurant. The pickings were slim by the time we got there.

No outdoor photo session.

We drove down to San Jose by 3:20pm. It was not hard finding the Dynasty restaurant. But wow...the whole area is a V-Town!

They were about 250 guests. What's different for me was a background set up by the restaurant for photographs with guests. Most Vietnamese weddings have this set up. I found myself doing one group after another. I wished I brought my tripod and a stool.

I witnessed a purse snatching while I went to the car to grab a diet Pepsi. A hispanic male, late 20's, medium build, very short haired baldish on a bicycle grabbed a purse from one of the wedding guests and rode off into the darkness of the night. Interesting how security just happened to be not there at the moment. It's wild out there!

Anyway, the rest of the evening went okay. Got my shots. This guy complained about me being behind the couple while they were cutting the cake.

I didn't do too bad considering I did not sleep the night before due to an upset stomach.