Today is incredibly special for three reasons. First and foremost, Taylor Swift just celebrated her 31st birthday 9 days ago, so that means she’s 31 and 9 days old today! Happy belated birthday, girl! And second, we’ve officially been married for over a week! 🥳🎉♥️ can you believe ya girl is a WIFE now? I’m not sure I fully grasp it yet. And third: it’s time to recap the year with our favorite wedding photos of 2020!
FAVORITE WEDDING PHOTOS
Traditionally, December 13th would have been the first day of 12 Days of A&M’s faves, our annual year-end celebration of all our favorite things we’ve seen in our season. It is something I personally look forward to and start planning months in advance every year. But because of the pandemic along with the timing of our wedding and honeymoon, we’ve decided to celebrate all 12 days with an epic blog post featuring our favorite things we’ve seen this year like wedding masks, engagement rings, micro wedding designs, first dance songs and more!
If you need some ideas for your 2021 or 2022 wedding, our couples have a lot to show you! Continue scrolling for some inspiration and pretty photos of couples who got married during a global pandemic. Cheers to all of you!
FAVORITE WEDDING PHOTOS
Day 1️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves 😷 WEDDING MASKS.
How could we not kick this off by reminiscing on one of the most iconic symbols of 2020? So many couples this year embraced the season of masks by leveling up their wedding attire with bridal themed health accessories. And we loved all of these wedding masks our couples incorporated into their days.
Day 2️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves: GOLDEN HOUR.
Anyone who’s ever come into contact with us has heard me say, “Ooooo this light looks so good!” And that’s because we pretty much exclusively shoot in golden hour light. How could we not!? Especially for engagement photos, our couples have completely glowed for our cameras in all kinds of beautiful locations. Check out our fave engagement photos below!
FAVORITE WEDDING PHOTOS
Day 3️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves: ENGAGEMENT RINGS.
Woooo girl we got to photograph some stunning engagement rings this year. I never thought I would love sparkle so much. These incredible engagement rings were to die for and definitely making it to my Pinterest board just because they’re so pretty.
Day 4️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves: GROOMS.
With a special shout out to our groom, Mark, for being such an outspoken supporter on our IG stories, and for calling me out on the “hey girl” salutation 😂 we know it’s pretty typical for all the focus to be on the bride, but being a sweetheart team of wedding photographers, Michael always ends up making a new best friend with our grooms, and it’s such an honor to love on the guys as much as the girls. These grooms made our favorite wedding photos even better.
Day 5️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves: CEREMONY ARCHES AND ALTARS.
Each one of our couples is always so creative and different. It’s one of the things we love most about being California wedding photographers. Sometimes the backdrop of the venue is perfect as is, and other times, a full floral installation dresses up the archway. No matter what our couples chose, their planners and florists knew that they just needed something to visually frame them and draw focus to the important stuff. These are our favorite ceremony arches and altars from 2020!
FAVORITE WEDDING PHOTOS
Day 6️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves 🎨 WEDDING COLOR PALETTES.
If you’re like me, I always imagined a specific color palette for my wedding. But once we chose a date and location, all those plans went out the window. And it didn’t help that all of our couples chose a STUNNING wedding color palette that made me want to question everything I was doing! If you need some wedding color palette inspiration, our couples got you covered.
Day 7️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves 💌 WEDDING INVITATIONS.
This year was a little wonky (yes, that’s a word in my vocabulary), and we saw the introduction of “Change-the-Dates” after the initial onset of the pandemic. However, our couples found ways to still capture the themes and details of their days for the chosen few who would get to attend in person. We especially loved Andrea & Nick’s letterpress invitations from Minted! See more of their Sycamore Creek Vineyards wedding here.
FAVORITE WEDDING PHOTOS
Day 8️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves 💃 FIRST DANCES.
These made us cry. OMG if there was ever an emotional part of a wedding day, I’m telling you it’s the first dance. And the songs our couples chose made us tear up almost every time! Our own first dance song was “Lover Remix (feat. Shawn Mendes)” by Taylor Swift. Obviously. Enjoy some of our favorite wedding photos.
Day 9️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves ♥️ WEDDING GUESTBOOKS.
These beauties have evolved over the years from a traditional guest book with lines and pretty binding to some really creative and interactive activities for guests. We have seen a lot of couples use Instax cameras and scrapbooks to invite guests to help tell the story of the day. And we’ve also seen many couples do a matte signing or an art piece filled with love notes.
Day 1️⃣0️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves 👗 WEDDING DRESS.
Girl, this one was the easiest of all of these. Every single one of our brides this year chose a dress we will never forget. We believe the dress magnifies a woman’s beauty. She doesn’t just look pretty or beautiful in her dress. She’s already beautiful, and she is adorned with an equally beautiful gown. All of the dresses we saw this year were our faves. We even got to photograph a stunning Hayley Paige princess gown! Some of our favorite wedding photos.
Day 1️⃣1️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves 👡 BRIDAL SHOES.
Whether it’s a pair of Betsey Johnson bridal heels or colorful Converse style tennis, elegant Bridal flats or sparkly Kate Spade Keds, all of our brides’ choice of footwear was absolutely amazing. We had at least three of our brides this year double up on their wedding shoes and feature colorful, sparkly Kate Spade Keds for their wedding. Did you know they make a rose gold version of these gorgeous shoes!? My poor bank account. Photographing our bride’s heels and tennis is the first thing we do in the morning when we’re working on flatlays at a wedding. And our brides did not disappoint!
Day 1️⃣2️⃣ of 12 Days of A&M’s Faves 👰 BRIDES.
Saved the best of our favorite wedding photos for last. It was no competition. All 10 of our 2020 brides win first place because we’re in love with every single one of them. The best part about being in this business as a Bay Area wedding photographer is getting to meet such powerful, amazing women. As a women-owned small business AND a woman about to be married, I learn so much from these ladies, and they have blessed me by believing in my dream. Not the ones where I’m best friends with Taylor Swift (although those are awesome). My dream of full time photography. Ladies—thank you. I love you with all my heart.
CALIFORNIA WEDDINGS
We were so blessed to photograph so many beautiful California weddings this year. Despite the pandemic. Our sweet brides persevered and blessed us with so much beauty, grace and joy. Help us celebrate them today and check out our favorites from their big days:
Jon & Hilary’s Vineyard Wedding at Victor Vineyards
Sarah & Timmy’s Pageo Lavender Farms Wedding Photos
Brenna & Nathan’s Villa Montalvo Wedding Photos & Church Wedding
Teresa & Peter’s Beautiful Backyard Wedding with Sushie Tran
Kirsten & Casey’s Hawaiian and Tuscan Wedding at Villa Riposo
Carla & Isaac’s Destination Wedding at Rancho Bernardo Inn with SD Weddings by Gina
Randi & Brandon’s Intimate Backyard Wedding with Forma Weddings
Jenessa & Ryan’s Intimate Elopement at Villa Montalvo
Corrie & Mark’s Fall Wedding at Kirigin Cellars
Nick & Andrea’s Fall Wedding at MO|HI Sycamore Creek Vineyards
CALIFORNIA WEDDING VENUES
If you’re on the hunt for the perfect California wedding venue, you have to check out some of these that we’ve photographed at this year. Anyone we recommend, we’ve personally worked with and we totally respect the event team there! Here are our top three California wedding venues for this year:
MO|HI Sycamore Creek Vineyards
CALIFORNIA WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Hey, girl! So glad you enjoyed our favorite wedding photos from this year! We are Michael and Angela, the sweetheart team of California Wedding Photographers based in the Bay Area. This year has been wild, but we know there’s so much joy to be found. And our sweet couples really showed us that. We hope this blog post has inspired you as you plan your future wedding. BIG NEWS: All weddings booked in December 2020 will receive a FREE ENGAGEMENT SESSION! That’s a $850 value TOTALLY FREE! Want to learn more about the Angela Sue Bridal experience? Contact us today.
