Daphne and David: San Francisco MOMA and Mourad Wedding

If there’s one bit of advice that every couple getting married should heed, it’s this: Do whatever you want, it’s your wedding. Sure you can seek inspiration from all the amazing weddings that’ve you pinned and bookmarked over the years, but how refreshing when it’s something all your own. My first time talking with David was on the phone standing outside my guesthouse in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia at 4 am. I received his wedding request and wanted to chat before I started driving out to the Gobi Desert for the week. He was really enthusiastic and quite confident that he wanted me as his photographer from the get-go, so I told him take the week to be sure while I bounced around in an old Russian tank of a van driving through the vast nothingness of the Mongolian landscape. A week later, I sent out a contract and looked forward to meeting David and Daphne.

Flash forward to the big day. I meet David at the Palace Hotel and immediately noticed his velvet suit jacket hanging by the closet. “Nice jacket” I said. It really was. Then he opened it up to show me the colored feather pattern on the inside. Damn, that was a cool jacket and I was jealous I didn’t own one. If I thought he took an alternative route to the wedding attire, I hadn’t seen anything yet, because when I met Daphne, she wore the most amazing floral short sleeve dressing. It was unlike anything I’ve seen as far as wedding dresses go. When they first came together during the first look, I knew we had something amazing to work with. She offered me a glass of Japanese whiskey while we were waiting for David on their rooftop. When it came time for the first look, I asked if she wanted me to hold onto her glass of whiskey during the photos. She shrugged and say, “Nah”. I loved it.

Fittingly, we moved onto the SF MOMA to shoot amongst the art. Daphne fit right in with the art pieces that I had to get a shot of David sitting on the bench looking at her. The colors on her dress really popped against the white in the museum and then later against the metallic blue of the Jewish Contemporary Museum.

The wedding and reception took place at Mourad where they broke tradition again and just got married at one end of the restaurant, the aisle, literally being the space between the tables and the booths. It was a fun and light-hearted ceremony that perfected captured how I saw the couple.