Award winning images don’t just come from the $100K weddings or only those with brides in designer gowns.

This year I stepped out on a limb and submitted two images to Denim + Grace for their Best Of 2014 Image contest. I nearly forgot about the contest until I almost deleted the congratulatory email! When I first read it, I thought to myself, of that’s great for all of the winners, but why are they sending me the nifty little website badge too? I re-read the email, a few times, and then if finally dawned on me – I’m receiving the email because I am one of the winners! I was in shock, to say the least. I quietly finished my breakfast and read the email again. Still in shock, I shared the news with my husband and then did a quick (well, not so quick) post on Instagram. Being published in a magazine is pretty huge. Being published in an inspirational magazine for photographers is pretty sweet. Being recognized as, “Best of 2014,” in a photographers inspirational magazine is amazing.  I am so honored and grateful to receive the recognition. Undoubtably, the couples are pretty happy too!

Although, I adore every wedding and every image for one reason or another – there were two that really stood out this year.

The first was taken at a wedding in May at Mill Valley Community Center. In the parking lot of a school across the large community field was a pop up festival. Complete with a farris wheel, the bride, Katherine, knew she wanted a picture on the field with the festival in a background. What we didn’t plan on that day, was the loads of traffic across the Golden Gate Bridge. We all arrived to the reception late and by the time we were set for sunset images, sunset had passed. I had experimented very little with off camera flash and evening photography, but I asked them if they were willing to take 5 to 10 minutes with me outside so I could try my, “vision.” I didn’t know if it would work or not, but they agreed anyway and we were off…

You can see the rest of Katherine and Konstantine’s wedding here.

The second image was taken during a beautiful September wedding day in San Francisco. I’m defiantly partial to September in the city as I am a September SF bride myself. Coming down from Canada, Justin and Brianne had been to their venue once and knew exactly what they wanted on their day – awesome photos. They found me through Instagram (no joke – they saw the images from Adam and Tanya’s wedding at Hotel Vitale and looked no further), contacted and booked me over the phone. Just prior to their arrival in San Francisco, Brianne was in an accident that left her with pretty bad whiplash and horrible vertigo. A lot of the traditional poses were out the door for her as she was doing her best to be amazing and power through on their day. Even the limo right around the city was questionable. We limited the number of city stops – but the one place we had to go to was Crissy Field. As we were finishing up the photos there, I realized that there was this awesome, long fishing pier. Immediately, I knew I wanted them there. I asked them to sit over the edge and dangle their feet… The bridal party was all for it, Brianne and Justin looked at me like I was crazy. “Trust me,” I said – and they did.

You can see the rest of Brianne and Justin’s wedding here.