Jen and Dmitri’s Wedding at the Presidio

Here are some of my favorite photos from Jen and Dmitri’s June Wedding at the Presidio Inn and Log Cabin. If you haven’t checked out their engagement photos yet, take a peek here and here and here.

The Inn at the Presidio is still fairly new and a beautiful venue to get ready for your wedding.

For their First Look, we used the front porch, which has beautiful light and great rocking chairs.

And then we walked down the street for some photos with the entire wedding party. We lucked out on the weather: sunny, beautiful days in June can be a rarity in San Francisco!

The Presidio Log Cabin is on a hill overlooking the city. The ceremony took place outdoors.

In the afternoon and evening, the light was just perfect.

Inside the Locally Grown Weddings team had transformed the Log Cabin for a stunning reception.

One of Jen and Dmitri’s priorities was to have beautiful photographs of their wedding day, so we took some time to make sure to capture the two of them around sunset time.

Congratulations, Jen and Dmitri!

Weddings are a team sport. Here are the wonderful people who made this event a success:

Photography: Aurora Meneghello - Locally Grown Weddings

Second Photographer: Douglas Despres

Wedding Coordination: Sadie Waddington - Locally Grown Weddings

Caterer: Chef Stephanie - Locally Grown Weddings

Florist: Kristina Tracy

Dessert: Cascades Cakes

Rentals: Toni Hill - Hartmann Studios

Hair Stylist: Hair to Dye For

Make-up: Flame Angel

Ceremony Music: Chris Dugan

DJ: Four Leaf Entertainment

I thought for this wonderful wedding I would do something different…enjoy a slideshow of Marco and Lindsey’s Wedding at Paradise Ridge Winery!

Thank you for all these wonderful vendors who made this happen:

Venue: Paradise Ridge Winery

Flowers: Maria Philbin Floral Design

Cake: Costeaux with floral arrangement by Maria Philbin

Make-up/Hair: It’s a Date at the Powder Room

2nd Shooter: Christopher Mackessy

Happy Anniversary, Jeanie and Toni!

Leah and Justin’s Wedding is featured on Style Me Pretty today, take a look and leave a comment :)

Wente Vineyards Wedding - Michelle and Matt Part Two

Let’s pick up from where we left off.

Michelle worked closely with Madeline to add flowers and decor that worked well with the venue while being modern and sophisticated. From the beginning she like the color purple and in October, dahlias turned out to be the perfect choice. 

I love this colorful bouquet, especially the green accents.

A boutonniere can be as creative as the bride’s bouquet. I love how Madeline used the different flowers for the groom and the best man.

Dahlias are perfect in their simplicity. Madeline used them in vases all around the reception area and with such a gorgeous setting, they enhanced the location, without being overbearing.

In addition to the flowers Madeline and Michelle selected pears and purple artichokes for the escort cards, adding something unique, as well as coordinating with the purple hues of the flowers and other decorative elements.

Then the same flowers and decor elements were used int he ceremony area.

Here come the bride…

More photos every day this week!

All weddings are the creation of a team of great professionals. I am so lucky I got to work with:

Venue: Wente Vineyards

Flowers and Event Design: By Madeline Trait

Hair and Make up: Cinta Salon

Wedding Dress: Amy Kuschel

Catering and Wedding Cake: Wente Vineyards

Michelle in her beautiful dress. You can see Part One of Michelle and Matt’s wedding here. The rest next week!

San Francisco Engagement Shoot: Lisa and Eric

WOW! I can’t believe this amazing January weather…

Lisa and Eric took full advantage of it for our engagement shoot. We went to North Beach, Baker’s Beach and the Marin Headlands for a few hours of fun!

Lisa and Eric are one of those lucky couples who were set up: their relatives thought they would just click and they did! They have been together now for almost two years and their love and excitement comes through when they are together. We chatted about love, relationships, San Francisco, blind dates and crazy San Francisco weather as we moved from one place to the next.

On our way to Baker’s Beach we snacked on chips and chocolate, while we enjoyed one of those rare days of sunshine in this part of the city. I can’t remember another engagement shoot on the beach without the fog!

Wind and cold don’t show, but Eric and Lisa were amazing: they put up with everything and still smiled, took off their shoes, ran and posed for the camera. Thank you!

The view from the Marin Headlands was just beautiful, so clear and crisp was the air.

Waiting for the right light was not easy, as the temperature steadily dropped. But the result was great images with unbeatable light. We shot the last few images fast and ran back to the car.

This last image is my favorite: I love the lights shining on the bridge and the colors are just amazing. San Francisco is such a beautiful city. Congratulations Eric and Lisa, I am looking forward to your wedding in August!

Baker’s Beach Engagement Photos: Doug and Susan

I met Doug a few years ago (is it 5 years already?) when he moved to San Francisco from Canada for work. Doug is passionate abut vegan food and yoga and is great at conversations. He found a true match in Susan: I could tell from the first moment I met her she was special. I was so happy when he told he proposed! And even happier that they asked me to take their engagement photos.

I always like to spend dome time talking to couples about their vision for these photos. Doug suggested “jumping” pictures. OK, then! That’s what we started with.

A note to those of you who have the same idea: be ready to jump. Many times. really high ;)

Susan and Doug also wanted the beach as the background for their photos and we all agreed Baker’s Beach would be awesome, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from Doug and Susan’s engagement photo session on Baker’s Beach, enjoy.

Palace of Fine Arts Engagement Photography: Melissa and Ryan

This was my last engagement shoot of 2011. Melissa and Ryan traveled all the way from San Diego to spend some time with their families and we spent some time together at the Palace of Fine Arts.

Melissa and Ryan met in high school. Oh, so romantic! And they have been together ever since.

Ryan is in the Armed Forces and will be leaving soon for overseas. He won’t be back until next January. I feel really moved by being able to take these pictures right before he leaves and my heart goes out to both him and Melissa who will be waiting back home.

Happy New Year, Melissa and Ryan!

Best Of Aurora Meneghello Productions: 2011 in Review

I can’t say enough times how grateful I am to all of you who supported Aurora Meneghello Productions this year. 2011 has been its best year ever, and it surpassed all my expectations. If I had to choose one word for 2011, I would say it’s COMMUNITY.

Locally Grown Weddings continued to grow and you will be able to read all about it on its blog in the days to come.

I joined BAIA at the end of 2010, but became active in the organization in January of 2011, after understanding a bit more how it works. BAIA has been just amazing and for more than one reason. First of all, the members of the board of governance are all interesting and talented professionals who excel at what they do and are committed to building a network of Italians who live and work here in the Bay Area. Everybody brings a different set of skills to the group and plans projects and events accordingly. I am learning lots about marketing, entrepreneurship and Silicon Valley. And then of course the best part has been meeting Sara and Veronica, who organize BAIA Aperitivo with me. It’s been years since I had Italian friends my age! So that makes me happy on a professional and personal level as well. BAIA Aperitivo has been a great success from the very first meeting, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, now it’s the time to do so!

What can I say…I LOVE weddings! This year I photographed some amazing weddings (more on next year’s blog posts) and met and connected with more couples than ever before. I couldn’t imagine a better way to spend my Saturdays than being surrounded by love and family in beautiful locations. Thanks to all of you who entrusted the memories of the first day of your life together to my photography. I wish you all the very best in 2012!

In 2011 I also started photographing Bar and Bat Mitzvahs and was blown away by this rite of passage of which I knew very little. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a time when young Jewish boys and girls become responsible for their actions to their community. They have to give a long speech and read from the Torah and discuss a passage from it, among other things. I can tell you that I would have been so scared of doing something like that at 12 or 13! Listening to these young people talk about peace, leadership, ethics and so on has reminded me how smart and underestimated young people are. Let’s all remember to value our youth, and not to dismiss their thoughts, waiting for them to “grow up.” Thank you to all the families who brought me into their homes and let me be part of this important milestone in the lives of their children.

In 2011 Aurora Meneghello Productions became green certified by Greener Photography and Locally Grown Weddings received its certification from the city of San Francisco. Yeah!

This year has also been bittersweet, with my really good friend Miriam moving to Germany with her fiancee (and now wife!) Doro. I was so honored to take their engagement photos before they left. I hope this will forever remind them of their days in San Francisco. Every now and then I look at the photos as well, when I miss them. But I am so happy to know that now they can pursue their art and passions as a married couple. Hopefully one day nobody will have to move abroad to marry their soul mate, no matter what gender they are.

As some of you know, I have worked for over 4 years on Default: the Student Loan Documentary. It’s been a real labor of  love and so many times I felt discouraged and wanted to give up! But finally we were able to release this important film and now 138 local TV stations are broadcasting it all over the country. More will add it to the list in the coming months (including KQED in SF) and I hope this will help change a system that is crippling the financial life of students across the US. This was possible because of the help of many people who contributed time and resources to this film. Thank you! And thanks to all of you who sent me emails saying how much of a difference this film made in your life.

In 2011, I have had the pleasure of working alongside some amazingly talented photographers, again COMMUNITY is the word! Thank you, Genevieve, Hardy, Anthony, Bryan, Chris and Matt for all your help. Gianluca, I miss you now that you are in LA, working with you was always so much fun! And thank you Craig, Saul and Mark for all your advice and support. It’s thanks to photographers like you that we can all thrive and produce exceptional work.

An last, but not least, thank you, Will, for being there for me when I am happy and when I am sad, when I am ready for a hike, and when I want to sleep until late on Sunday morning. You have enriched my life from the first day we met, even if it took me a second date to figure that out ;)

Happy New Year, everybody. May 2012 bring you joy, peace and happiness!

Thank you, Hardy Wilson, for this photo of me at work!