Jennifer Bowen Photography » Engagement, Wedding, Portrait & Family Photographer // Scottsdale, Phoenix Arizona

I’m remiss in blogging Sunny & John’s wedding so much later than I normally post weddings. They were married this past December and were my last wedding of the season. It was a great way to end the year on such a high note. John and Sunny are very, very in love and it was so beautiful to witness all of their passion and warm affection for one-another. This is the second marriage for each of them and they are bringing two families together – Sunny’s 3 daughters and John’s 3 grown sons with their own respective families. They are like a true Brady Bunch! :-)

John is the CEO of Ping Golf and lives here in Phoenix (the wedding took place and his private home) and Sunny was living in Hawaii with her daughters when they were introduced by a mutual friend at John’s church. The friend had met Sunny and thought John should call her as they would be the perfect match. After lots of phone calls and a long distance relationship, it turns out this mutual friend was very right indeed, and a wonderful love blossomed, which is so plain to see. Cheers to persistence and good match-making!

Their outdoor, tented wedding was coordinated by Trisha Foster at Total Events and the flowers were provided by a family friend. My friend & photographer Cristi Owen came along to shoot the day with me and I’ve included some of her images below as well, which are noted.

Here are some favorites from the day:

Loved her fun purple shoes!

One the way down the stairs to their first look/meet. Image by Cristi Owen

I loved their first look

Especially this moment

And this one

After, we headed outside to capture some bride and groom portraits

They love cacti, so we took advantage of the huge saguaro outside of John’s home

Then we headed back for the ceremony to begin

I love this look John’s mother and Sunny shared, who was walked down the aisle by both of her adoring parents. Love it!

John’s amazing view from his backyard

Sunny’s daughter and John sharing a hug after the ceremony

Sunny and her 3 beautiful daughters

John and his handsome sons

The grandchildren & flower girls were dressed up as ballerinas. So sweet

Love this side angle Cristi captured of their silly face-making

After family portraits, we went back out front to take advantage of the setting sun and the GORGEOUS sunset

A few details from their tent. Good thing they had this heated, because it was freezing out that day! (Well, freezing for Arizona!)

Beautiful sunset shot by Cristi and love the dance shot she got below!

Thank you Sunny and John for sharing your kind and loving spirits. Congratulations to you both!

I mentioned a few posts back that I recently photographed another Royal Palms Babymoon Bliss Package maternity shoot. I had the chance to meet Kristin and her husband Darren for their session there and they were just awesome to work with. I love her style and laid back attitude, which really made things fun. They are expecting TWINS and she looks ah-ma-zing!

Here are some favs:

If you follow my work, you may have noticed over the past several months that I’m really loving the grainy look again… the classic, timeless BW image reminiscent of film.

I loved her yellow scarf and the fresh pop of color it added. Kristin is absolutely beautiful…

Here baby room colors have orange in them, so I can see this being a big canvas on the wall

Jenna and Jim are getting married this March, and we had so much fun at their engagement session a couple weeks ago. They are both so incredibly sweet and kind and I am looking so forward to their big day!

Aimee and Matt’s wedding album arrived right before Christmas and I love how it came out! They opted to purchase an album after their wedding and upgraded to the Avant Garde collection (which I will be posting more images of all my albums soon.)

I recently met up with adorable Jeanette and Darren for their engagement session. We went to the Arizona Biltmore where they got engaged and had so much fun! They are getting married this March at the Sanctuary Camelback Mountain Resort and I’m looking so forward to their wedding. Here are some of my favs from the day…

LOVE this next one…

Jeanette had these fantastic red shoes on that I just loved!

‘Tis the season for engagement sessions! I travelled out to Orange County, California in mid December to meet up with Erica and Steve for their engagement session. They are getting married this October at Silverleaf Club in Scottsdale, but both live in LA and wanted to do their session out there. We had so much fun exploring San Juan Capistrano, a town I had never visited before. There were so many fun historic buildings there, so it offered a lot of variety photographically. We had planned to also go into the historic Mission to try and take some images, but since we didn’t have an appointment, they wanted to charge us $75 to use the grounds, so we decided not to spend the extra $$ and moved on to Laguna Beach. It was actually a blessing we left when we did, because the light drops over the horizon earlier in California than it does here, so we had the perfect amount of time left on the beach!

Erica knew of this quirky little petting zoo in town, complete with this shack that reminds me of that spooky house on LOST. You know, the one where “Jacob” lives. Or as Steve said, one look inside was like Poltergeist.

We figured when there is a bathtub on a porch, what else do you do but get in?

I loved this whole set of them on this random person’s stairs.

After San Juan Capistrano, we moved to Laguna. We went to The Montage Resort there and just caught the setting sun.

This shot is an HDR image of two exposures: one for the sky and one for them on the bench. The bird was luck.

Then we headed down to the beach, and Erica was a trouper for wearing shorts because it was cold!

I felt this next shot called for a little texture…

Taking advantage of the last remaining light with high ISO

We came back up and warmed up by the fire with a glass of wine. Ironically, The Montage had just finished a commercial shoot for their brochure and had some real props in place by the fire, including all the fixings for smores! How perfect, because Erica and Steve made s’mores together on one of their first dates, so it was especially fitting. They made me one too and it was yum – sticky and chocolatey, just like it should be.

Thank you for such a fun time Erica and Steve! I cant wait for your wedding in the fall. :)