The Mountain Home Inn is atop at Mt. Tamalpais ridgeline, bordering Muir Woods with cozy rooms. I took Kathy & Dan’s engagement photos in San Francisco in February this year. It was so good to work with them again. The second photographer Ryan helped me to take photos while Dan was getting ready, and I mainly focused on the bride. I took quite some photos of beautiful flowers and decoration for the wedding. I promise that you are going to see quite some of them soon.

The following is a sneak preview of the wedding. More photos are coming!

Stephanie & Alberto got engaged! Moreover, I had the great pleasure taking engagement photos for them at the scenic San Francisco, CA. And on top of that, we brought the cute dog “Monkey” with us for the photo shoot. Monkey is so cute and protective. In the middle of the photo shoot, she even barked violently at a person who had the slight intention to steal my camera bag. Wait, it is not over yet. We had the engagement session at the famous Graffiti street in San Francisco! What else can you ask for photography? I just had tons of fun taking photos for the “family” at the unique location.

Their wedding is coming up at the scenic half moon bay area soon. I can’t wait to work with them again!

The following are some of favorite photos of the engagement session.

Jessica & Frank got married at Sunnyvale Church of Resurrection, Sunnyvale, California. This is a small but intimate wedding. I could feel the connection and love between them. Jessica got ready in Cypress hotel, Cupertino. Cypress hotel is one of my favorite wedding venues in south bay area. After that, I went to Frank’s house for groom’s get-ready photos. After the wedding ceremony, we went to the local park in Sunnyvale for more romantic photos. The wedding reception is at Frank’s place also. Thanks for my new second photographer Ryan’s help during the photo shoot.

The following are some of my favorite photos from this wedding.

Here is the picture in case that you want to see it

Here is the link for voting:
https://www.facebook.com/engagement101mag/app_268237033270053

Jessica & Qian are getting married in China soon. So they contacted me for a wedding dress/bridal portrait session in the scenic San Francisco bay area before their wedding. It is a Chinese tradition to take some photos before the wedding when the girl wears wedding dress and the boy wears a formal suit. We first started from Stanford University in Palo Alto. The flowers were blooming and I got some of beautiful photos when Jessica was laying down among the flowers. After that, we headed to San Francisco for more pictures. We visited the Palace of Fine Arts, the Legion of Honor and the last stop is Baker beach.

The following are some of my favorite photos of the wedding dress/bridal portrait session.

Rebecca & Leo are getting married in East bay area in May this year. Leo’s sister enjoys taking photos and found me on the internet.
She booked me for Rebecca & Leo’s wedding without meeting in person. Thanks so much for her trust! We had the engagement session in
Palace of Fine Arts and the Cliff House, San Francisco. Rebecca and Leo likes biking a lot so that they brought a bicycle with them
for the photo shoot. It turned out great with the bicycle. It was so much fun working with them. I can’t wait to photograph their wedding soon!

The following are some of my favorite photos for this engagement session.

Sarah & Sean are getting married in Sunnyvale in August. They are both young and adorable. They wanted to have the “save the date” photos ready ASAP, so that we had this engagement session 5 months before the wedding date.
Since it had been raining in the past two weeks and we had to adjust the engagemetn photo shoot based on the weather report. Luckily, we found our perfect day when the weather report showed that it was going to stop raining in the afternoon. There was only 4-hour window but it was perfect for us to get the beautiful engagement photos.

Since both Sarah and Sean enjoy outdoor activities a lot, We started from Sevens Creek County Park in Cupertino. There is a lake in the county park and we hiked a little bit to warm up. I had to admit that I enjoy hiking a lot myself Then we headed to my favorite spot for engagement and wedding photos: The Mountain Winery in Saratoga. The winery is a popular wedding venue in south bay area, which is only ten minutes away from my San Jose studio. The leaves looked very fresh after the rain. There was even some little rain drops in the middle, which gave some special feeling to the photos.

The following are some of my favorite photos.

Heather and Randy are getting married in East Bay soon! So we had the engagement session at the scenic Villa Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, CA. Montalvo Arts Center is a beautiful wedding venue in south bay area, CA. It has various scenes such as meadow, bridge, building, small waterfalls.

Both Heather and Randy are baseball fans, so they brought some baseballs and use them to mark their wedding date. What a fantastic idea! They also have a 2-year old son, whose name is also Randy. I had pleasure taking some family photos first and followed by more romantic photos for two of them.

The following are some of my favorites photos from this engagement session.

Ashley & Brian are getting married soon! Ashley & Brian first met each other at the V bar inside Hotel Valencia, Santana Row, San Jose. So we took their engagement photos at Santana Row to bring back their memories. I photographed Cindy & Tom’s wedding at Hotel Valencia last October and I loved the venue so much. The wedding coordinator Karen helped a lot during their wedding. It is nice to come back and work with another getting-married couple.

Santana Row is a upper-scale fashion shopping center in south bay area. So I approached this engagement session in a more fashionable way. Ashley had a great figure and she brought some nice dresses. We walked around and had lots of fun.

The following are some of my favorite photos during this engagement session.

Alyssa & Adam are getting married in San Jose. I had pleasure working with them for their engagement session in The Mountain Winery, Saratoga. The winery is located on top of mountain with beautiful view. An amphitheater was built in the winery in 1958. World-class music and breathtaking scenery have consistently proved to be a crowd-pleasing combination in this nice south bay area wedding venue. It is truly a hidden treasure in the mountains. The winery is less than 20 minutes drive from my San Jose studio and this is one of my favorite spots for a quick wine tasting. We first started from the parking lot area in late afternoon. There are some nice backdrops of green grass, wild flowers and trees. It worked great with their causal outfits. The sunlight already turned very soft and gentle, which made the photos pop up. After that, Alyssa changed into a red dress and we did more romantic photo shoot.

The following are some of my favoriate photos from the engagemenet session at the scenic Mountain Windery, Saratoga, CA.

Kathy and Dan are getting married in May this year. I had a great pleasure working with Kathy & Dan for their engagement session in Marina area in San Francisco, one of the many beautiful places in Bay area. The site is less than 1 hour’s drive from my photo studio in San Jose. Since it is difficult to park in San Francisco, we carpooled to the site instead of driving two cars. This proved to be a great idea.

Kathy and Dan had some great idea about the cable car. We were lucky enough to get on one cable car and took some very romantic photos. We walked around and when it got dark, we were back in the Lombard street area. Well, it was quite some walk from the bottom to the top of the street. It was well worth the effort since I had the last shot which turned out to be one of the best in the whole session.

I used some special vintage photo post processing in this session. The following are some of my favorite photos:

This is one of my favorite weddings since I had enough time working with the bride and groom to create something like I really like. The wedding lasted more than 12 hours and it was well worth the effort. The wedding venue is at Hyatt Regency Santa Clara. We went to Stanford University at Palo Alto for bridal portraits, which turned out great. The color of the wedding is red, which is also my favorite color.

Thanks to my second photographer Sophia for the fantastic detail photos. I posted a preview of this wedding and finally I had chance to post the full set. A beautiful flush-mount wedding album was made based on this wedding. Enjoy the photos!

Mengqi & Wencong got married at Las Vegas. This is one of my favorite weddings this year, because the location is Las Vegas! They first got ready at Hilton Las Vegas. Then we took the limo to the famous Las Vegas sign for the classic photo. After that, we headed to Venetian in Las Vegas for more romantic photos. We took the Gondola ride at Venetian. They say that “No trip would be complete without a graceful and romantic glide down the Grand Canal in an authentic Venetian gondola.” Well, we did it and it was well worth the effort. Thanks a lot to the help of the groomsmen and bridesmaids, we were able to take as more photos as possible during the process. The wedding ceremony site is at the wedding chapel inside Hilton Las Vegas. The reception is also inside Hilton, which is very convenient. It was my great pleasure working with them.

Here are some of my favorite photos of the wedding. Congratulations to you, Mengqi & Wencong!

Well, it is another new year. Bayphoto Net Photography won the “Bride’s Choice Award” again in 2012! If you follow me long enough, you will find that this is the third year in a row that I won this award. Thanks to the trust and reviews of brides and grooms, I owe this to you!

As one of the premier wedding photography provides in San Francisco Bay area, I will continue to do my best in this new year. Actually, there will be many exciting changes coming up in 2012:

. Two new flush-mount wedding album options will be provided: A canvas photo cover album and a metal cover photo album.

. New logo will come up!

. A new website is in the design and will come up soon.

. New post-processing techniques including textures and vintage effects will be applied to certain photos in all wedding photography packages.

I had pleasure working with Anting & Yujing for their wedding portraits session at San Francisco Japanese Tea Garden inside Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA. It is an Asian tradition to take wedding portraits (wedding dress photos) before or after the wedding ceremony. The Japanese Tea Garden is very beautiful and there is a very special bridge inside the garden. It is small but the scene is different for every few steps. After taking photos inside the garden, we went to Palace of Fine Arts, another popular site for more wedding photos.

Here are some of my favorite photos of the wedding portrait session. Some of the photos used some new technique that make them look like canvas painting.

Cindy & Robert got married at east coast and flyed to San Francisco for their honeymoon. The loved the beach scene very much so that we decided to take photos at Baker beach in the end. We started from Palace of Fine Arts and the lighting was beautiful in the winter afternoon. It wasy still a little bit windy. Once we got started, then we did not feel that cold. Cindy & Robert even climbed the rocks at Baker Beach, which was quite some adventure.

The following are some of my favorite photos during the bridal portrait session.

Emmy & Brendan got married at the beautiful Cinnabar Hills Golf Club in San Jose. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Cinnabar Hills Golf Club is an ideal Wedding Venue in bay area with a majestic mountain location. I worked with Emmy & Brendan at ATT park in San Francisco for their engagement photos a few months ago. They used some large prints from the engagement session for the guest book, which turned out great.

I worked with my second photographer Ben for this beautiful wedding. Since Emmy got ready in Saratoga and Brendan got ready at Fairmont hotel in San Jose, Ben and I took the photos separately at the beginning. Ben did a great job by capturing the preparation moment for Brendan. I was happy working with Emmy when she got ready.

Congratulations to you, Emmy & Brendan!

Crystal and Daniel got married at Wedgewood Eagle Ridge Golf Club in Gilroy. It was in the last days of Autumn and one can see beautiful fall colors in this scenic south bay area golf course. I worked with them on their engagement session more than a year ago at Vasona Lake Park in Los Gatos. So it was a pleasure taking photos for them again. The decoration in the venue is beautiful. They paid a lot of attention to details, which looked great in photos also. I like the two-story building of the wedding venue, which allowed me to take some photojournalistic photos from upstairs without being noticed. Crystal and Daniel are super nice working with and I enjoyed the every moment of their wedding.

Here are some of my favorite photos of the wedding. Congratulations to you, Crystal & Daniel!

Sharleen & Geoff got married at the scenic Brazilian Room in Tilden Park, Berkely. I took their engagement photos at Shadowbrook Restaurant in Santa Cruz area a few months ago. Tilden Park is a scenic natural attraction in the East Bay area. Brazilian room is located beside the botanic garden inside the park. Sharleen & Geoff are so much fun working with that I enjoyed the whole process a lot. The wedding ceremony was unique in the sense that guests needed to sign on some rocks and put the rocks in a circle. Sharleen and Geoff stepped inside the circule during the ceremony. It has the meaning of “perfection” in asian tradition (well, this is just my wild guess).

Here are some of my favorite photos of the wedding.  Congratulations to you, Sharleen & Geoff!

They did the first look before the ceremony. First-look can be very helpful to provide extra time for photography. Since after the wedding ceremony, most couples only have 1 hour of cock-tail time for the photography service.

John & Joyce got married at the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay. The Ritz-Carlton is a luxury 5-star hotel in San Francisco Bay area. It is facing Pacific Ocean with a gorgeous view. This is a small and intimate outdoor wedding. John and Joyce got ready at the hotel. Then they had traditional Eastern style tea ceremony. After the tea ceremony, we took some group photos and portraits before the wedding ceremony. The wedding ceremony is outdoor facing Pacific Ocean. The Ritz-Carlton hotel is in the background. What a beautiful location! There is a nice beach on the bottom of the cliff, where the hotel was built. We headed to the beach for more photos after the wedding ceremony.

Here are some of my faovirte photos of the wedding.

Tom & Cindy got married at Hotel Valencia Santana Row in San Jose. Hotel Valencia is an upscale hotel in the heart of silicon valley. Santana Row is an European-style business and relaxation center in south bay area. Hotel Valencia is located in the center of Santana Row. The wedding is a combination of Asian and American style. There was a traditional Asian tea ceremony in the morning, followed by the western-style ceremony and reception at night. I worked with Tom & Cindy for their engagement session in San Francisco a few months ago. It was excited to work with them again.

The following are some of my favorite photos of the wedding. Congratulations to you, Tom & Cindy!

Kristen & Jeremy got married at the beautiful Montara beach in Half Moon Bay, California. It was a gorgeous day. I love beach wedding and no doubt this is one of my favorite beach weddings. The wedding is small with the right amount of people. I first went to Kristen’s house to take preparation photos. Then we drove down to Montara beach for the wedding ceremony. After the ceremony, I worked with them on the beach for some romantic photos. Then we used the Rolls Royce for more photos. The wedding reception is at La Costanera restaurant in Half Moon Bay. The restaurant has a great view of the Pacific Ocean. When it was dark and cold on the beach, it was warm, cozy and full of romance inside the restaurant.

The following are some of my favorite photos from the wedding. Congratulations to you, Kristen & Jeremy!

Emmy and Brendan are both fans of San Francisco Giants. So we selected AT&T park as the engagement site. They decided to both wear the San Francisco Giants jerseys. It was a blast working with them. Super cool and sweet. During the photo shoot, Brendan and Emmy kept on checking their Iphones, because it is football season! I am a big football fan myself. Suddenly, I had the idea of using Iphone for a sweet photo. The following are some of my favorite photos of the engagement session.

Emmy and Brendan are getting married at the scenic Cinnabar Hills Golf Club in San Jose. I can’t wait to work with them again!

I worked with Sharleen and Geoff for their engagement session in the scenic Santa Cruz area. There is a beautiful restaurant called Shadowbrook in Capitola. Shadowbrook is rated one of the most romantic restaurants in San Francisco Bay area by the readers of San Francisco Focus. To access the restaurant, one can either walk down the garden trail or take a cable car. The restaurant is an excellent choice for events such as weddings or birthday parties.

We started taking pictures from inside the restaurant. Sharleen and Geoff had some cool ideas of plyaing Black Jack. Then with a story-telling approach, we documented the engagement session from playing Black Jack to falling in love with each other. It is lots of fun working with them. I can’t wait to photograph their wedding in Tilden Botanic Gardens in Berkeley next month.

The following are some of my favorite photos of the engagement session.

Amber and Tim got married at San Jose Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Santa Clara county, California. After the wedding ceremony, we went to San Jose Japanese Friendship Garden for more photos. The Japanese Garden is one of my favorite photography sites in the scenic San Francisco Bay area. The wedding reception site is at New Hope church in Sunnyvale. On the road to the reception site, I asked Amber and Tim: “Do you have a plan for honeymoon?” They answered:” We are going somewhere that nobody else knows”. I thought that they were joking. Well, at the end of the reception, they ran out, got into the car and drove to the happy land that nobody else knows.

The following are some of my favorite  wedding photos.

Susan and John are from Scotland, Europe. Susan found me on the internet and booked me without meeting in person, since we were thousands of miles away. They travelled to the scenic bay area, California and got married in the beautiful San Francisco city Hall. I have photographed many weddings at San Francisco City Hall and I love this place a lot. The original San Francisco city hall was damaged during an earthquake in 1906. The earth quake damaged many buildings in bay area. The current city hall was completely rebuilt at the same site. The San Francisco City Hall’s dome is the fifth largest in the world. The wedding is small but intimate. After the wedding ceremony, I worked with Susan and John for more photos inside the city hall.

The following are some of my favorite wedding photos.

Congratulations to you, Susan and John!

Julius & Linelle got married at Brownstone Gardens, Oakley. Brownstone Gardens is a beautiful outdoor wedding venue in Northeast Bay area. I took Julius & Linelle’s engagement photos at San Jose Japanese Friendship Garden and Santa Cruz beaches this year. It was nice working with them again.

Because there were lots of formal group photo shoots after the wedding ceremony and during the reception, I did my best to get some artistic photos for them in a very tight time window. During a dancer’s performance, I saw the opportunity and asked them to pose for a minute and got one of the best shots with the dancer as the foreground. At the end of the reception, I was able to work with them again to take more artistic photos.

When everything was done, it was almost mid-night and it tooke me another an hour an half to get back home in San Jose. The following are some of my favorite wedding photos. Congratulations to you, Julius and Linelle!

Bo & Henry found me via internet and they spents hours driving up from south California to the scenic San Francisco Bay area for the engagement photo session. I was pretty much all booked in September except several days. Bo and Henry were very nice to accomdate my schedule and made this engagement session happen. We went to Pier 7, City Hall, Bakers Beach and Legion of Honor in San Francisco for the photo shoot.

The following are some of my favorite photos of the engagement session.