Steve Smith Photography | Seattle wedding and portrait photographer

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Carissa and Chris were actually married this February in Jamaica. This reception was something that the family and friends all wanted to be a part of.  They choose the very photogenic, A Country Location in Smokey Point for their celebration last Sunday afternoon.  The couple actually wore wedding attire again for the celebration and after a slide-show they were announced and came downstairs to greet their guests. The weather cleared briefly in the afternoon, making the day perfect.

Act 3 Catering did a wonderful presentation for lunch and the DJ, Michael from Integritas is a good friend of mine and it was great to finally be able to work together..

Thanks Carissa and Chris for allowing me to spend the day with you!

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I photographed Kaity and Matt’s engagement session several months ago at Alki and last Saturday I met up with them again in Port Gamble for their wedding. They were married at the beautiful historic church, and the reception followed outside right next door.  It was great working with you two again, best of luck to you both!

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On Saturday morning, our driver Anthony from Magnum Tours (the one wearing the tie in the photos) picked us up from the hotel for a private 8 hour VIP wine tour.  He asked what type of wine we liked and mentioned that he would be taking us to the non-tourist wineries.

He started us off at a smaller winery, called Milat Vineyards, they had a nice selection and we ended up purchasing 3 out of the 5 varieties we tasted, not bad for our first location. 

Our next stop was Reverie Winery, where we had lunch with one of the owners. The clever thing about this winery is that the wines are tasted at various locations throughout the property and a beautiful location it is!  The cave photo above is located in the hillside, when you walk in you see hundreds of barrels with wine aging, also it’s naturally air conditioned and cool.  We didn’t think we loved red wines as much, but their wines were really impressive, so we acquired a couple of bottles, a Cabernet Franc and a Cabernet Sauvignon.  

Then, it was on to Frank Family Vineyards for a great variety of wine, even a very nice champagne.  We picked up a really nice port from them and we might share, if you’re nice! 

Luna Vineyards was our next stop, where they had a lot of different varieties, many of which we have never heard of, but nothing we really loved. 

And finally, was the beautiful Viansa Winery in Sonoma where they were preparing for a wedding ceremony just after our tasting. We picked up a couple bottles of dessert wine there.

It was back to San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge for some scenic viewpoints. There are so many wineries to visit, over 700 of them, so Napa Valley certainly has a lot to see.  Thank you Anthony for spending the day with us, it was a great trip and you certainly made it enjoyable!   We hope you had fun as well.

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Here is the second of three postings from our trip last week.

After spending about an hour on the motor coach, it dropped us off at 5th and Market Street in the heart of downtown San Francisco.  This was just two blocks from the Parc 55 Hotel where we would be for the duration of our stay.

The location was prime for sightseeing, and our room was on the 25th floor and had a great view of the city skyline. We noticed that when we first arrived, it felt like we were still experiencing movement like we were still on the train, but the room was not shaking or moving!  It took almost a whole day to get over this sensation.

After getting settled into our room, it was time to explore some of the shopping nearby.  We decided to check out the IMAX 3D feature of Harry Potter that was playing at the Metreon complex nearby. It was pretty amazing and the 3D sequence at the end of the movie was totally incredible.

The next day we headed off to the San Fancisco Zoo for a few hours.  It’s a great facility and we managed to get a few cute animal shots, then it was back to the city for our Hornblower dinner cruise around the bay where we met a couple that was visiting from Florida.  We hope they had a safe trip home and finally warmed up from the chilly night we had that night on the cruise.

The next and final post from the trip, wine country!

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The third and final wedding for the Labor Day weekend was Mary and Anthony’s at the Bellevue SDA Church. They had the ceremony inside the church with a casual reception outdoors. One of the highlights of the day was when the groomsmen kidnapped Anthony for ransom, and a clever way to come up with some extra cash for the honeymoon. After the reception we went to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens to explore and get a few final shots of the day.