Gayla Elizabeth Photography - Los Angeles | Honolulu Portrait and Wedding Photography » engagement/couples

Allie and Jeremy are getting married!

gayla — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:04:34 +0000

While these two grew up in the same Beverly Hills neighborhood, they never seen or heard of each other until mutual friends tried to set them up a while ago. Jeremy was given Allie’s number but never called. dom.dom. dom…..It was only months later when Allie was at a party at the W Hotel when she met this guy… yup, it was Jeremy. It was only after a brief conversation and recalling his last name Weinstein that Allie realized he was the guy that never called! “Allegedly”, Jeremy never got her number from their mutual friends. ( I thought I’d use the legal term, since Allie is a lawyer! LOL. ) Funny thing was Allie said she wasn’t really into Jeremy after meeting him that night.

Fast forward to the present day and here we are, Allie and Jeremy are officially engaged and getting married. Yup, MARRIED! I met with them both this past weekend to go over a few details about their upcoming wedding and we managed to squeeze in a little mini-engagement session. You can see they were in fact meant for each other and they both are overflowing with cuteness. So much for not Allie not being into him after meeting him that first night. Congrats Allie and Jeremy. I’m excited to be shooting your wedding coming up in August!

Jamie + Pat | Engagement Photography | Edition Hotel, Hawaii

gayla — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:12:20 +0000

Jamie scheduled this engagement photo session at the new Edition Hotel in Waikiki, Hawaii since she was looking for a location that suited her and her financé Pat. The Edition Hotel is right next to the landmark Ilikai Hotel in Waikiki. And it was perfect for them. PERFECT. When you see this hotel, you think modern, hip, trendy and chic. And that is exactly how I would describe Jamie and Pat. They look like they could be in VOGUE magazine.

I would describe Jamie and Pat’s relationship as playful, cute, romantic and stylish… a couple that seems to have it all. Jamie is quite the socialite and is known for her sense of style and array of friends across the globe with her adorable personality and glowing smile. She’s also pretty athletic; she played soccer all through school, starting from Iolani School and then onto Loyola Marymount University. She then obtained her Masters Degree, currently works as a Counselor and coaches soccer. She has a pretty full life and is now ready to settle down with her Prince Charming…Pat. I say Prince Charming, because he is quite the romantic. Yes, ladies…he is a keeper. I mean the guy is spontaneous, fun and full of sentimental surprises. Just what every girls dreams of. But…he’s taken, since he put that Tacori engagement ring on Jamie’s finger. It just so happened that this photography shoot was going to be on Jamie’s birthday. Happy dance people! So, what does Mr. Romance do? He decided to surprise Jamie by making reservations at the posh hotel for 2 nights. Needless to say how shocked, surprised and happy Jamie was when Pat showed her the Edition Hotel room key upon arrival! Now, getting Jamie’s clothes to the room, was…let’s just say… “challenging”, since she didn’t pack her clothes in a suitcase. LOL.

This engagement session was a blast and I really enjoyed how much these two love each other. My images capture everything about them.. fun.. laughter..romance…style…and love. I’m looking forward to shooting their wedding in 2012. Congrats Jamie and Pat! Now get going on your wedding planning.

. Living the dream…

Jamie + Pat | Engagement Photography | Edition Hotel, Hawaii from Gayla Elizabeth on Vimeo.

Kaylynn + Jon | Couple Photography | Honolulu, Hawaii

gayla — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 18:14:56 +0000

Kaylynn and Jon have been an item for about 2 years now and wanted a photo session together as a couple. They are not officially “engaged”, so this is technically just a basic couple photography session, the only difference is she doesn’t have a ring on her finger. (wink, wink). Both of them work at Ala Moana Shopping Center; Kaylynn works at Victoria’s Secret and Jon works at the plush club Pearl, so it was the perfect backdrop to do this photo session. Not to mention we had a few tears from mother nature, so we could run for cover if we needed to! As a photographer, I love to look for different backdrops and colors, so we just walked around and grabbed some images throughout the shopping center as we strolled by. Our first stop was Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and we eventually made it to one of my favs… Louis Vuitton.

Kaylynn + Jon | Engagement Photography | Honolulu, Hi from Gayla Elizabeth on Vimeo.

Tricia + Erik | Engagement Photography | Honolulu, Hawaii

gayla — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 04:16:36 +0000

While I was home visiting for the holidays in Hawaii, I happened to schedule 4 shoots. This was the first engagement session with Tricia and Erik, who will be getting married this May at Central Union Church in Honolulu. There was lots of rain and thunderstorms in Hawaii and I’m not talking about little sprinkles either. It was POURING! The big storm was passing through the islands, so we changed our original location and shot this engagement session at Ala Moana Shopping Center. This would give us insurance of coverage, in case mother nature decided to bless us with her tears.

Luckily, there was no rain, but we did manage to get some adorable shots of this cute couple! Take a peek below…

Petersen Automotive Museum | Engagement Shootout

gayla — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 18:00:55 +0000

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a Charity Engagement Shootout to benefit The HOPE Program of Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. The event was organized and hosted by Jen O’Sullivan and held at The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Engaged couples were invited to meet local wedding vendors, get their hair and make-up done by a professional makeup artist and get some photographs taken by local wedding photographers and it was completely FREE to attend. All vendors donated their time in hopes of raising some money for the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. The HOPE program provides compassionate psychosocial care and support for patients diagnosed and treated in the Childrens Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases. If couples liked their photographs, they would simply donate $25 to The HOPE Program to get the original files from the photographers. There was also a live auction at the end, where all funds were donated to The HOPE program and there were some great items to be auctioned off, including a gorgeous $2400 wedding gown, makeup sessions and more! It was a great resource for engaged couples to help plan their upcoming big day, get educated and also have fun with some great photographers. One of the couples I worked with wanted to shoot next the the original Batmobile in the museum…. that was fun!

Julia & Tom -Engagement

gayla — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:38:45 +0000

Lawyer meets Fashion Designer…two different worlds, but together they are perfect. Julia decided to have their engagement photography done at the modern Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica, CA. After all, she is a trendy Fashion Designer and this hotel is pretty darn snazzy.

I know Julia was thinking about the furniture and look of the hotel when she picked it for her engagement shoot, but Tom is a huge Boston Celtic fan and some of the main colors are green and white…perfect for a die hard Celtic Fan. See, this is what I mean when I say “together they are perfect”. These two have been dating for 8 years and decided to finally make it official and get married this September. They are relatively new to the LA scene,as they recently moved here for New York, but these two seem like they were made for LA. Seriously, these two have become popular socialites in the short time they’ve been here. We did a quick session around the hotel and got to know more about each other. Right after our photo shoot, we headed to the bar, chatted, shared stories and laughter. It’s so great to shoot such awesome people. Thanks Julia and Tom for the apple martini..it was yummy!

Jessica and Luis – Engagement

gayla — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:16:39 +0000

They both wanted to venture to downtown Los Angeles and shoot their engagement photos there since they both love the feel and history of the station. In fact, before graduating from USC in Print Journalism, Jessica used to travel via train to UC Riverside for her undergrad studies, so there was a little history there! It’s always great to shoot at the famous Los Angeles Union Station! We ventured around the station and got some great photographs of the two just being themselves. It was rather hot that day, so we tried our best to stay indoors!

Both will be getting married this October, so stay tuned for the wedding pics.

Jessica and Luis…(coming soon)

gayla — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 06:43:22 +0000

I shot this engagement session of Jessica and Luis a couple weeks back. While I have their photo session edited and ready to go, they have not yet seen their private preview screening, so I can only post a teaser.

I’ll be seeing them next week and once I do, I’ll post more from this session including the details of the lovely couple. For now, enjoy two photos that I chose to share.

Engagement shoots for charity…

gayla — Thu, 13 May 2010 07:54:35 +0000

I was lucky enough to participate in a charity shootout for LETMESAIL yesterday. The event was hosted by Jen O’Sullivan and was focused towards those engaged couples getting married soon. The event was held at The Sunset restaurant in Malibu, CA. and it was all about weddings. Weddings, weddings, weddings! Makeup artists, bakers, wedding invitations, coordinators/planners, videographers, florists. You name it, if you are getting married, everything you needed was right here. Including the venue! The Sunset restaurant sits right across of the ocean with breathtaking views. You can have a beautiful beach ceremony and when it’s done, take a few steps and have the reception in the restaurant. It’s gorgeous. Everything was donated, we provided services and raffled off services and gifts for attendees. All profits were donated to the organization LETMESAIL. To find out more about the organization and to donate, click here. It was great to see so much support from some awesome vendors out there. There was some great gifts given out yesterday and there were some couples that walked away with some serious goods. I’m so glad I took part in it.

When I first got there, it felt like a hurricane watch should’ve been in effect. Seriously, it was pretty darn windy. I mean there was a sandstorm on the beach, no joke. But, once inside the reception area inside of The Sunset restaurant, I was greeted with great people and sitting beautifully on a table nestled on the side was CUPCAKES! Yup, I had my eyes set on those little cutie pies from the minute I stepped in there. And, before days end, I was able to meet up with a couple mini-vanilla cupcakes with blue frosting. Yum, yum. Thank you social frog designs!

Anyway, I met some great couples and did a few quick mini-sessions, some lasting as short at 5 minutes. Yes, FIVE minutes! I thought I’d post a few shots from the day. I’ll post more soon, but wanted to share the great couples I met yesterday. In all of these shots, you will definitely see my motto….LOVE..LAUGH..SMILE. There is a lot of that going on in these photos, take a peek.

Have fun!

gayla — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:34:08 +0000

I get lots of emails from those asking me what to expect during the photo shoot and how do I get those “REAL” smiles. Here’s the answer. Have FUN! Yes, it’s really that simple. I am just a girl with the camera that captures real emotions, real smiles and great images. All you have to do is be yourself, relax and enjoy. It’s not complicated, there is no magic or tricks. I have met some incredible people over the last few months and I have many posts to get up on the blog. Don’t worry, I’m in the middle of hiring someone, so I should be able to play catchup and get back on track. Any hoo hoo, here is an image that I chose that shows what my shoots are all about. F*U*N! More from this session later from my folks at the Socal Photography Shootout