21 Jun 2011, Posted by Carmen in Blog,East Bay Wedding,Outdoor Wedding, 2 Comments

Snow Building, Oakland Wedding Photography | Emi + Alex

There were many firsts for me at Emi & Alex’s wedding at the Snow Building in Oakland.  Since the building is technically inside the grounds of Oakland Zoo property, I went to scout inside the zoo earlier in the day.  Although we never actually got to photograph inside the zoo during the wedding, I did get to see flamingos, rhinos, and giraffes in the East Bay for the first time – really exciting for me .  First time it’s started raining on us in the middle of an outdoor ceremony, which smoothly got relocated indoors for part 2.  It’s also the first time I’ve photographed a wedding that represented these 4 particular ethnicities coming together – Argentinian, Armenian (Alex), Black and Mexican (Emi).  This definitely translated into fantastic families coming together for a very fun wedding!  First time I’ve seen churros be part of the dessert bar at a wedding, too… If you don’t know what churros are, I highly recommend going to the streets of Madrid in the wee hours of the morning after being out all night to find out!  And it’s the first time I’ve seen a groom surprise his new wife by not only having a mariachi band (her favorite) show up and play near the end of the night, but also picking up the microphone and belting out a song just for her as his first time ever singing in front of a crowd!  Cheers to the both of you!

The progression of sky colors over the San Francisco skyline as the sun set on this half-rainy day was just stunning!

Alex after his fabulous mariachi debut :