Today we are in the midst of packing up for Lindsay and Ryan’s destination wedding in Cabo San Lucas, I thought I’d post what we’ve been calling their “mini wedding” in Santa Monica. Since we’re we’ll be covering the full experience in Mexico we just made a quick trip up to Santa Monica to photograph their small ceremony and do some portraits afterwards. With our roots in Chicago weddings we have covered a lot of Catholic ceremonies. Most of the churches in Chicago are massive cathedral like structures, ornate and beautiful, and typically have pretty restrictive rules when it comes to photography. With the guest count at about ten (might have been one less since they almost forgot to bring Lindsay’s dad) for this mini ceremony the priest actually welcomed us to get closer and shoot on the alter itself. This is not a normal move, and it presented us the opportunity to capture some angles that we’ve never been able to capture in a Catholic ceremony. After the ceremony at St. Monica we headed over to nearby Palisades Park for some portraits, and then the gorgeous Viceroy Hotel. Pretty awesome stuff! Alright, back to packing!