Valerie & Justin's Wedding. Blackhawk

Ceremony at St. Victor's in San Jose and reception at the Blackhawk Museum in Danville.

It's like six-degrees of Kevin Bacon. A previous client and Valerie when to high school together. Justin worked with the sister of a different KKP client. That client referred me. Valerie's and another client's family go to the same church. Valerie and I both have black hair. OK, that last one was a test to see if you were paying attention, but it is true!

Readers recall part of Valerie and Justin’s engagement session was photographed at the Niles Canyon Rail Yard in Sunol. You may have thought that they loved trains but truth-be-told, this couple is all about beer! We stopped briefly at Justin’s where the guys were assembling. Notably, each groomsman had a different set of cufflinks. The story behind Justin’s dated back to his brother’s wedding. He was in a spot and bought his at an antique store in Niles on the day of. They look pretty cool, I need to get myself a couple sets of vintage links! At the same time over at Valerie’s parent’s, Monina and team had hair and makeup running at multiple stations. We kept ourselves busy with details like the dress, bedazzled shoes, lockets, etc. Check out the dress form (aka mannequin) used to display Valerie’s gown, what a terrific idea!

I last photographed at St. Victors five years ago when Jennifer de la Cruz and Michael Padua were married. Valerie’s was a childhood parishioner of St. Victor’s and returned now for her wedding. After the ceremony, Valerie and Justin had a surprise for their guests, the Wow Silog Truck. Yes, a roach coach was in the parking lot serving up Filipino snacks! Yes, haha, guests of the wedding after ours was taking advantage of it too!

That afternoon we took advantage of Blackhawk Plaza and photographed the couple and wedding party around the property. A museum anchors one end of the plaza and houses a collection of classic cars. The reception was hosted amongst Ferrari’s, Bentley’s, Jaguar’s, Alfa’s, Benz’s, … and beer. A testament to Valerie and Justin’s persuasion, tables were outfitted with coasters donated by many of their favorite brewers. They even had a special bottling just for them! The beer references don’t stop there. Somehow The Delicate Daisy was able to get their hands on Hops, lot’s of Hops, Hops were everywhere.

Honeymoon? Hah! Oktoberfest of course; across Europe!

Thank you James and Sotheary for referring :D

Event Coordination: Events by Satra
Hair/Makeup: Moderne Beauty - Monina Wright
Floral Design: The Delicate Daisy House of Flowers - Roxane Rockwell
Cake: Edith Meyer
Music: Pierre Galang
Videography: MiCha Videography
Photo Booth: 247 Media

Valerie & Justin's Engagement. Niles Canyon

Thank you Sotheary and James for introducing us! Turns out, we are also connected through 2 other clients of mine. Small world indeed!

Valerie and Justin share a love for beer and the Oakland A's. Early on when we talked about their engagement session we thought about going to the Coliseum during a game or maybe something centered around a brew pub. Then one weekend they went to explore Sunol and that was it, it was going to be the train yard.

The Niles Canyon Railway is a well known attraction and runs restored trains between Niles and Sunol on weekends. The Sunol Railyard is where trains are parked during the week and worked on by a crew of dedicated volunteers. It's kind of open to the public so we made sure to call ahead and sign our waivers. It was pretty neat wandering around the place. Most of the passenger cars are locked up but there are still plenty of opportunities. We could have spent all day there! Great place and they host a night shoot during the full moon.