The Depot Hotel Sonoma Wedding | Kati & Daniel

Weddings

The Depot Hotel Sonoma Wedding | Kati & Daniel

We’re seeing some common threads with all of our clients, and it starts with their initial e-mail to us, which goes something like this: “We hate having our pictures taken. We’re kind of shy. We’re not doing a lot of the traditional wedding elements. We LOVE your candid photography.” I read these words and a little tiny Julie starts bouncing off the walls of my brain saying “weeeeeeeee yayayay!!!” And then I read it out loud to Maurice and we cross our fingers hoping everything works out.

Such was the case with Kati and Daniel. After e-mailing a couple of times and then a nice long phone conversation, we decided we all were in fact a perfect match. They booked an engagement session even though it sounded like there were about a million things Daniel would rather be doing than have his photo taken… but even he had a good time (: See the proof and check out their engagement session! So by the time their wedding rolled around, we were already buddies and that much more comfortable with each other. We actually all expressed to each other that it really felt like we were sharing the day with good friends.

We had so much fun and The Depot Hotel Restaurant was the perfect venue for their 91 guests. A couple of my favorite and might I add, most epic shots, are not in this blog post, but will be on our Instagram @mojoweddings ; look out for the evening shot of the pool and dance floor.

Getting ready at the Gaige House in Sonoma was exquisitely beautiful and relaxing.

Below is the moment Daniel saw Kati for the first time. There was no formal, as they say in the biz, “First Look.” Since they were getting ready in the same room, he just strolled in after being out for the morning and smiled at his bride who, and this is my favorite part of all, was in the middle of brushing her teeth.

Here she is looking freaking amazing, curlers and toothbrush and all. A truly candid first look.

There is gorgeous bamboo growing around the Gaige House.

The perfect curl looking even better in black and white (:

A little help from the wind and this is one of my all time favorite bouquet shots. The amazing arrangement made by Kati’s cousin also doesn’t hurt.

Kati and Daniel are obsessed with movies and they have one of the most awesome hobbies: seeking out movie locations as they travel and re-creating / taking a photo there. I actually think this is one of the coolest-nerdiest things ever. So this is obviously not the real Field of Dreams location, but it’s movie related, so they took that as a sign when they were scouting their nearby wedding venue at the Depot Hotel. Look at these two, who hate to have their photo taken, looking like total movie stars. Damn, I think they look good (and there’s that wind again).

Another offbeat, non-tradtional, super duper bridechilla (and groomchilla) moment: they had no idea what their cake would look like. They just said make it awesome. And it was awesome and tasty and just as cute and nerdy as they are (;

One of the backdrops of their wedding day.

It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a sparkler send off, and so I looked up some tips to make sure we nailed it. The best advice I found was to have the couple stop and kiss as they got to the end of the line. I told Kati and she was on board. It was sort of a surprise for Daniel, but he handled it just fine… he even ran back through to get the most of those sparklers, because how many times in your life do you get to run through a tunnel of sparklers and family and friends anyways?