Okay honestly, I don’t even know where to start with this post. How can I possibly sum up an extraordinary week with Juanita and Billy in just a paragraph or two? I can’t.

Meet Juanita and Billy. This photogenic couple resides in New York City (the city that I’m in love with) and came to me inquiring about having a shoot in Europe. Yup. I grabbed the contract and a pen so quickly I yanked it out of the printer before the contract was even done printing. Well not really, but needless to say I was very excited. And although the story didn’t really go like that I do remember using a lot of capitalized letters followed by exclamation marks and a lot of  “:)” in my email exchanges between them.

During our trip in France, I basically spent three-four days with a couple that I had only met with once.  Usually trips like these end up could end up either really good or really bad. But this trip was EPIC. I was traveling (sightseeing), photographing, and meeting people all at the same time. That’s pretty much a bunch of my passions in life all smashed into one trip. And really, what more could a photographer ask for when he’s given a beautiful and awesome couple with an environment that is simply astonishing. The beauty, history, vastness, detail of European architecture easily blows away any of the architecture in Los Angeles. The abundance of columns, cobble stone streets, archways, stone walls, etc. etc. is any photographer’s dream! Thank you Juanita, and Billy for giving me this opportunity! I must’ve thanked them about a million times already for taking me there to photograph in such an amazing place. Speaking of thanking, I think it’s funny when people thank me for taking photos of them, because really, people pay me to do what I love? No, no, no, thank you!

Anyways, I digress. Juanita + Billy + France = eye-gasmic photos. We drove (or Billy drove) hours away from Paris to visit a number of Chateaus to photograph at (A Chateau is a French fortress, castle, estate, in case your vocabulary is a little rusty like mine.) And all of them were just jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

If you’ve never been to Paris, here’s my two cents. Food is expensive and terrible, but the desserts make up for it. Prior to this trip, I didn’t have a sweet tooth. In fact I avoided sweets, but on many of our trips Billy would take detours just so that we could visit a certain bakery for a dessert run. And you know what? I now like desserts. There, I said it! I can’t remember how many dessert places we actually went to but it just seemed like we were going to them all the time! And I was totally liking it!!

Yeah I think I’ll stop here, because I could probably go on forever.

Erich Chen Photography. Paris Wedding. France Wedding. Destination Wedding Photographer. Creative and Modern Wedding Photographer. If you are interested in having your destination wedding photographed by me please visit my contact page through my website www.erichchen.com

I will write a full blog post when I go through these photos later, but basically three days in paris with the amazing Juanita and Billy = epic. Thank you SOOOOO MUCH Juanita and Billy.

This is news that I’ve been holding back for a while, because I didn’t want to announce it until it was published. But recently I entered into the Look of Love Photography Contest associated with American Photo Magazine and also Destination Weddings and Honeymoon Magazine. and I won! I won!

I am very esctatic to tell the world that I won for the “Getting Ready” Category and received runner-up for “Couples Portrait” Category. Considering it was my first photography contest that I won, I was very surprised to win. When I got the call one morning I was speechless, it was one of those moments in life where you’re really happy and your brain has so many thoughts going on but nothing comes out of your mouth.

This is the winning photo for “Getting Ready”

Runner-up for Couples Portrait

These photos are also published in American Photo Magazine, and when they get published I’ll put up another post, but for now these will do

Erich Chen Photography. Los Angeles Wedding and Portrait Photographer. Orange County Wedding and Portrait Photographer. Look of Love Photography Contest Winner. Published in American Photo. Published in Destination Weddings and Honeymoon Magazine. If you are interested in booking me for a wedding please go to the contact page on my website www.erichchen.com

I love this couple. I love!  I don’t even know where to begin with all my excitement.  Allison and Hok are authentic New Yorkers, and they’re some of the nicest people I’ve met. They are awesome. In fact, they are more awesome than awesome itself.

Let me tell you a little about the couple. Allison’s a Brooklyn girl, and she loves food, traveling, and everything wedding. Everything. That’s how she found me actually, she found me through my blog. The more I got to know her the more I realized she’s a lot like me. Both of us can’t seem to lie, and we both wear our feelings on our sleeves, meaning if we’re unhappy we’ll show it unintentionally, and there’s nothing we can do about it. She’s also very sociable, very cool, and very hip.

Hok likes seafood And I like seafood. Anyone who likes seafood is cool, period. And I think he said he’s going to have seafood at their wedding. I look forward to eating it, and I think Hok’s gonna make sure it’s gonna be some damn good seafood.

These are their engagement photos!

Erich Chen Photography. Los Angeles Wedding and Portrait Photographer. New York City Destination Engagement Photographer. Creative Wedding Photographer. Modern Wedding Photographer. If you are interested in your own destination engagement session please contact me through my website www.erichchen.com