One of my favorite things about photographing weddings is being a part of a family for a day. It’s even better the second time around when photographing another family member’s wedding. I shot Trinh and Dan’s wedding in the fall of 2014 and a year later I got to photograph her brothers big day as well at this Coronado Island Marriot.

Kim and Khoa’s wedding day started early in the morning with a traditional Vietnamese ceremony at Khoa’s parents house. The ceremony included the lighting of candles and paying respect to their ancestors. There was also a tea ceremony where Kim and Khoa served tea to their family and guests and received wedding advice. It’s great to see these important traditions practiced.

Another neat thing about a Vietnamese wedding is that we get two outfits, and we got to do double the portrait session. During the first session, Kim and Khoa made it easy by being fully engaged with each other during their portrait session and being cute and playful. I loved how the first portrait session turned out, but then we doubled up and got a second set of fabulous wedding photos.

A Coronado Island Marriot wedding is great because we get a great view of the San Diego City skyline for portraits and then can walk a short distance to the ballroom to celebrate. Once we got into the ballroom, it was party time. The couple kicked off the reception with their first dance. It started off as a slow dance and quickly broke out into a full out choreographed dance to Gangnam Style. It was a great party full of smiles, laughs, tears and ridiculous dance moves.