FANNY + DENNIS E-SESSION

Fanny and Dennis met in college a couple of moons ago and they wanted to incorporate some of that college rah rah into their E-Session. We had a blast reliving how they met back in the day. Hair and Make Up by the super talented Theresa Huang. Enjoy!

LAUREN + GEORGE

Happy Holidays everyone! As a treat, we will be highlighting some of our favorite wedding photos from 2009.

We will be featuring one couple a week til end of 2009. In the event we get lucky with some extra help from Santa's helper, we might even upload a bonus

feature or two during a week.

Now a bit about Lauren and George. L+G is one of the cutest and classiest couples we've photographed. L+G had a catholic ceremony and

their reception was at The Portofino Hotel and Yatch Club in Redondo Beach. We had a blast shooting their photos around the premise

and on the beach. The day was perfect, sunny and warm. The conditions could not have been better.

We were totally blessed and wanted to share these two images with you all. Cheers!

I Heart Apple

My proud moment of the historic event on June 29th, 2007 during the iPhone 1st generation unveiling to the world. I waited in line for 6 hours with fellow Apple enthusiast to get my hands on one of these revolutionary cell phone. Hah good times :)



Please bear with me but I will eventually get to my point after my rants, thanks for your patience. You can also just fast forward and scroll all the way down to my list of why I heart Apple.

Just this past weekend, I was in the Riviera-Maya, Mexico shooting the wedding of Tiffany + Brooks (stay tune for their photos). And since my schedule was going to be a jam pack 3-day weekend, I decided to activate the password mode on my iPhone in the event I loose the phone. I figured losing the phone is no big deal since I can delete all of the sensitive info remotely via Apple's me.com service. I figured this was a good idea as a preventative measure. Sooooo this is when everything started to get a bit more interesting.

Flashforward a few hours later, I landed safely in Cancun, checked into my room at Mosquito Blue in downtown Playa del Carmen, and headed straight to the closest convenient store called Oxxo (think of 7 Eleven) for a prepaid phone card. When I got back to my room I realized all the instruction were in spanish (of course), but thanks to the concierge, he helped me figured out that all I needed to do was press 1 for instructions in english...yeah! So now I am all set to call my wifey (oh yes, we were not shooting together on this event) and when I started to punch in my password the freakin' numbers on my phone were not responding. WTF? I rebooted the iPhone by pressing and holding on both the "on" and "home" button down until the iPhone rebooted and the Apple logo appeared. All seemed fine until I tried to re-enter the code. The keypad pad went berzerk, for every number I would touch, it would give me a different number. After entering the password a couple of times I realized I set the phone to reset (erase all data) after 10 failed attempts. I couldn't believe this was happening!

Now normally I don't really care about the info since I have everything backed up on my laptop but one really important application is my new Xpense Trkr app on my iPhone that helps me keep tracks of all my driving mileage during the year...this was the only piece of info that was important to me and I needed to retrieve it pronto. So what to do? Absolutely nada until I get back to the states.

Moving on, the wedding shoot on Saturday was gorgeous and fabulous (promise will post some photos soon).

Sunday, rise and shine and back to Cali. On the flight back, I started thinking of the worst case scenario about my iPhone...what if I can't retrieve the info on my iPhone...and I have no way of communicating with my wife when I land, etc.

As soon as I arrived home I made an appointment with the Apple Genius Bar for early Monday morning. I was given both the good news and hopeful news which is better than the good and bad news version right? The good news was my iPhone's serial number was part of a batch that was made that had a known failed keypad, meaning Apple would replace my freakin' old beat up tired ass 1st generation iPhone with another brand spanking shiny new 1st generation iPhone. The hopeful news was since my last physical sync between my iPhone and iTunes was only 3 days ago, then theoretically all of the information from all third party apps on the iPhone should have been backed up during the last physical sync.

We connected the new shiny iPhone to my laptop. Let the waiting games begins...20 mins later, the sync was done and when I opened up my Xpense Trkr, voila..all of my mileage expenses for 2009 were there. I was so stoked that I just wanted to give my Genius Bar guy a hug, but instead I resorted to giving him countless thank yous and many gestures of gratitude. I love Apple, man!

Okay, finally my conclusion and to the point of why I heart Apple...let me count thee ways:

1. Apple rocks..duh (just a bonus to start it off right...right?)

2. The backing up of data for 3rd party apps on your iPhone. Who would want to lose their highest score on Bejewel?

3. Apple will always make the best product and ensure customer satisfaction. Sorry Windows and PC's but you got nothing on Mac!

4. Only Apple will be totally sincere and honest enough to fess up and tell me, "Hey dude...you're iPhone is on the list of known defect list"...and offer to replace my iPhone for F-R-E-E! I mean come on, who the hell has this kind of customer service? Not Dell, IBM, Verizon and definitely not you're freakin' credit card companies.

5. Apple products always work seamlessly and effortless.

6. The clean Lines and esthetics. No bulk for performance.

7. In the long run, you get more than what you pay for.

8. Apple service is unmatched: Genius Bar, Apple Care, One on One, free Apple store classes and seminars, etc.

Dear Apple, thank you for showing and reminding us all that it is still possible to run a successful business without greed, distrust and malice. I wish everyone, especially the auto makers and the financial sectors would learn from your examples.

Once you go Mac, you never go back.

Make A Mark

So we finally had a chance to rest up and blog about the awesome tween empowerment event Make A Mark on Oct 10th, 2009. Make A Mark was a huge success filled with lots of magical moments like the inspirational world renowned guest speaker Jennifer Curtet to the many awesome sponsors like Jellypop Shoes, TripleCord, Huntington Catering, Plum Denim, Six78th Magazine, Fleuretica, Heart 4 Africa, ChicaCircle, The Sewing Studio, Tiselle and yours truly Steven Lam Photography. The girls were treated to a fashion show, some cool products for their lifestyle and an arts and craft and positive body image workshops, plus a fun portrait session by our studio. We had a blast meeting each and everyone of these little darlings. Seeing their "wow" attitude and satisfaction in their eyes just says it all and totally made this collective effort worthwhile.

So congratulations Kelley Gin on your premier event of Make A Mark. We are totally behind you 100%! Thank you for stepping up and being such a hero and leader to the future generations of young women. Keep inspiring!

By the way, Just Ask Marlene aka JAM also blogged about this event. Click here for more details: justaskmarlene.com

P.S. will upload some photos shortly...

Make A Mark

Just a reminder that the Make A Mark event is going down tomorrow Saturday October 10th, 2009 from 10:30am to 3pm at the Pasadena Convention Center Conference Center, Lover Level. 300 Eeast Green Street, Pasadena, CA 91101.

Make A Mark is a tween empowerment event focusing on self-esteem, body image, and a positive relationship between mother and daughter.

Steven Lam Photography is proud to be a sponsor of this positive event. We will have a photo booth set up to help capture photos of these lovely tweens. So come on out and have a great day filled with wonderful and powerful information, guests speakers and other goodies. And remember to stop by our photo booth to say hello and have your picture taken.

For more info: http://www.mark-it.org

Bike Wedding

We have some exciting news to share with everyone. We have been asked to be the exclusive photographers for Rose Pedals Bike Weddings! We are thrilled to be a part of this amazing green wedding concept. What's not to love? Biking on the beach, the golden warm sun, the soothing sounds of the ocean! These are amongst the top reasons to have a bike wedding, not to mention the low impact carbon footprint associated with biking. So it was an obvious choice and a no brainer to accept Elizabeth Oakes invitation to join her pioneer bike wedding concept. Elizabeth is not a newbie to the wedding scene, in fact, she has conducted thousands of weddings: from celebrity nuptials to backyard and beach elopements, grand soirees to courthouse ceremonies. She has been dubbed "The Love Lady" by the locals. Is it legal? Absolutely. It is fun? Duh!!

Now, the fun part begins...Jason and Erica were our guinea pig bride and groom along with their super cute three-year-old son Winston who served as their witness, yippie! It was meant to be for the E+J to get married by the beach near their cruisers on the Venice Beach canals. They trek at least three times a week from the Inland Empire just to ride the bike trail that runs from Santa Monica to Manhattan beach! If this isn't love I don't know what is and they love each other as well!

After the ceremony, we all rode over to the Venice Beach boardwalk for some fun photos of the adventurous couple. The greatest thing was seeing people cheer as the entourage rode on Washington Blvd. We all had a blast and we could have not asked for a better couple to premier Rose Pedals Bike Weddings. Thanks to Jason Erica, little Winston and Elizabeth for sharing this fun, eco friendly wedding with us and keeping our planet green!!


Thank you Erica, Jason and Winston for an amazing bike wedding shoot. We love ya!

For more info, booking and availability visit: RosePedalsBikeWeddings.com

Jason Markk

Jason Markk is the world's first premium sneaker cleaning solution that will clean the whites and everything under the sun on your sneakers beautifully, without the harmful chemical side effects that often turn your whites into that funky yellowish tone.

So when we received a call last week directly from the man himself, Jason Markk telling us he is in dire need of some publicity photos. We quickly upgraded our telephone conversation into creative brief mode. Jason shows up the next day and the rest was history. Jason had a very clear idea of what he needed for his pr pix and it's a pleasure whenever we work with talented peeps that has great vision and design sensibility. We are stoked that Jason was ecstatic about the pix we've produced together. For Jason's perspective of our shoot, visit Jasonmarkk.com. And our photos from this shoot was featured on Dazzle, a chinese street culture online zine. Thanks for being such a huge fan of our work Jason!

Make A Mark

Attention all girls! We are excited to announce our dear friend Kelley Gin is hosting an amazing tween empowerment event focusing on self-esteem, body image, and a positive relationship between mother & daughter. Make A Mark will be an interactive and informative event featuring a fashion show hosted by Plum Denim and Jellypop Shoes. Jennifer Curtet will take the main stage as she motivates our future female leaders of America. All guests will receive a swag bag, raffle tickets, and an opportunity to donate to two charities; Heart 4 Africa and Pajama Program .

Make A Mark

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Pasadena Convention Center

{conference center, lower level}

300 E. Green St.

Pasadena, CA 91101

10:30am - 3:00pm

Tickets are $20.00 per person and can be purchased through Event Brite

Contact Kelley for sponsor opportunities: info{a}mark-it.org or 626.893.1054.

Pigeon Toe Ceramics

Pigeon Toe Ceramics is all about scandinavian aesthetic. Made with lots of TLC in Portland Oregon by Lisa Hough and her talented team. Each vessels are thrown on the wheel in porcelain, then embellished by hand to form their unique, organic shapes and designs. These works of art would make the perfect centerpiece in any wedding. Best part, they will be cherished by your guests filled with fond memories of your event for years to come. Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too...chic, sustainable and responsible. For more info visit pigeontoeceramics.com

Psst! Orders over $200 get a 35% off the retail cost, when at least 4 of a specific item is ordered!

Designer Casters

We came across these sleek casters whilst working with our furniture design for our studio's credenza. We wanted a caster that reflects our studio's philosophy: minimal, classic yet chic. We scoured the interweb and finally found these beautifully crafted casters with some personality. These casters have the perfect little details helping us add a bit of zest to our studio space.

What does this have to do with weddings? Absolutely nothing, yet it might just be that little extra detail that you need for your minimal cake stand cart...ya never know! For more info and available for purchase at Doug Mockett & Company, Inc.

First Dance Remixed

Okay, this blog is for the fellas and those couples that just cringe whenever "first dance" gets mentioned. Maybe dancing is not your forte, maybe the thought of having 300 guests starring at your feeties every move is nerve-racking. Whatever it is, we have found a great "first dance" alternative to your standard wedding expectation.

Paige + Kevin, a hip young artistic couple have come up with a brilliant solution by remixing the first dance concept with a fun silly dance routine on video with a little help from their friend who is a commercial director. They filmed a surprise comedic synchronized dance video with reality TV confessional session and behind the scene outtakes. This is such a great idea because Kevin's specialty is not dancing! None of their guests knew this was coming and it became an instant hit! Their dance was projected on the studio wall halfway through the reception, after toasts. What a bloody brilliant idea and we have a feeling that this turn of event will spark and inspire more couples to follow in their footstep, with a twist of their own brilliance of course! More details about Paige + Kevin's wedding, including that fabulous video at UtterlyEngaged.com or watch the video directly at YouTube.com. Cheers!

Utterly Engaged Issue #002 Feature

Wow, wow, wow, what an exciting week. We just found out that one of our weddings was featured on Uttterly Engaged Issue #002 featuring Alisa + Scott's eco wedding in Santiago Oaks Reginal Park, California. We are totally enjoying the feeling of being on a big white puffy cloud right now since last week's amazing open house and then this morning come to find out that we were featured on Utterly Engaged feels so right. Read all about it at UtterlyEngaged.com

Steven Lam Photography + Picture Perfect Events Open House

Fantastic news, we (Steven Lam Photography + Picture Perfect Events aka PPE) moved into a new studio just a few months ago. To celebrate our move, we put our forces together and threw an open house soiree on Wednesday night July 15th. Kelley, Carmen and I opened the studio to 100 of our closest friends and family members. We are so stoked about our new and bigger space that we just can't wait to share it with every one. Our studio is still in the same awesome 1920's art deco building located at 5225 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 333 in the Mid-Wilshire area aka Museum Row district. Best part of our studio is the location, which is surrounded by some of the world's best restaurants and all within a 10 miles radius. Not to mention all of the coolest boutiques where you can shop til your heart's content like Marc Jacobs, Burton and Prada plus countless of galleries, museums and furnishing stores. So when you stop by our studio, it's the perfect time to explore the area and catch your next find. Back to our new studio. It has an awesome outdoor patio where we get to enjoy the warm summer light. Best part of the studio is the abundance of natural light filling up our beautiful work spaces. We are so happy that all of our guests that came out for the open house had a chance to experience this personally.

Our guest were treated to a beautiful view of the LA skyline during sunset while DJ Orbit kept the atmosphere lively with his funky set. For the bar, Mike (our awesome bartender) and Gwen (in the yellow dress) from Seagram's kept our guests chilled with "Sweet Tea Vodka" served in custom Seagram's mason jar which our guests took home at the end of the night...Woo hoo! This Eco friendly concept was both fun yet practical, saving the landfills from more plastic cups and the sweet tea was not bad at all (for recipe of this drink and where to purchase, visit infiniumspirits.com.

Carmen Lam, Tianyi Wang of Tiselle, Kelley Gin of PPE, Steven Lam and Darren aka DJ Orbit

Kim from Papeterie custom designed coasters exclusively for our event. Tianyi of Tiselle provided exquisite letterpress cards for all of our guests for the taking. Kimberly from BBJ Linen providing the linens for our outdoor cocktail table. Teresa Huang Makeup + Hair Design helped our female guests stay stylish with her awesome Eye Lash Bar. Euri and Kendra from Fleuretica turned our studio's blank canvas filling it with beautiful vibrant fuschia, gray and emerald green floral arrangements. They were gorgeous to look at yet wonderfully and creatively executed like the adorable vases that were wrapped with white flocked wallpaper.

Mendy from Cakes by the Pound fulfilled our guests' sweet cravings with her wonderful mini square bite size cakes. These itsy-bitsy cakes were baked with a lot of TLC and all of our guests were raving about it. Justin from Huntington Catering Company brought in the arsenal with their amazing hors d'oeuvres pleasantly surprising our guests' palette with their mini japanese pumpkin pie sprinkled with pecan, mini quesadilla and chilli tortilla shooters. Huntington Catering also provided the awesome 4x4 ottoman in the patio so all of our guests had a place to mingle comfortably and stylishly. Tristan Anderson: tristanaanderson@aol.com (our favorite masseur in LA) treated our guests with his loving hands to a 10 mins urban retreat. You can't get better than this! The open house was a smashing success (thanks to all of our wonderful sponsors), we couldn't believe we had more than 90 guests and they all enjoyed every moment of it till the end.

hanging out on the ottoman

hanging out with the family: Luis, Matthew, Michael, Mom and I

Rakja, Timo of Euro USA Travel, Carmen

Kelley and Spencer

Carmen, Steven and Albert Smith

Kimberly at BBJ Linen, Mechcad Brooks from True Blood between Eva and friend from Red Velvet Occasions/Utterly Engaged, Rebecca Mader from Lost, Kim Chiu from Papeterie and Charlene Yang Chan from PPE

Special thanks to Kelley of PPE, every aspect of the event and it's elements were nicely placed and organized. As a result the event ran smoothly without a hitch. Actually, we did have one hitch and thanks to Naomi of DNT Events (the coordinator that she is) made a quick dash to Ralph's to pick up more ice for the bar...wheeeeew, thanks for saving the party Naomi. This is why its so crucial to have an event coordinator for your wedding/event and the staff to help support it. Without this minor detail, the host will never have a chance to enjoy the party. Instead, the host ends up making last minute decisions on where to set up, putting this and that together, taking out the trash and of course the dreadful clean up chore causing the host valuable loss time...totally missing out on having a good time with their guests. This event was definitely a nice reminder of this, even though we always advise all of our clients to acquire an event/wedding coordinator, our event solidify and validate it. If you haven't had enough of this event and want to read more about it, visit pictureperfectevent.blogspot.com to get another perspective on our open house.

C+S of Steven Lam Photography, Theresa Huang, Kelley of PPE, Tianyi of Tiselle, Tracy, Euri and Kendra of Fleuretica

Kelley and Carmen

Last but not least, we wanted to thank Kelley and Janet from PPE for making this brilliant happening event! Bravo Kel, we love ya!

P.S. If you want to hear DJ Orbit's open house set, it will be available for upload on his blog so check back periodically for it)

Madsen Bucket Cycle

We wanted to share this awesome Madsen Bucket Cycle with everyone especially the couple who has everything in life.  This is such a lovely addition to your next farmer's market ride, park outing or at your private vacation beach home in Antigua.  Now, you can finally add that extra sack of potatoes or bring the extra blanket for lounging or anything that you want to stuff inside this lovely bucket to your hearts content.  No matter what you tow, you will have a blast running errands on your Madsen Bucket Cycle around town or on your own island. I can't wait to see one of these beauties in Eagle Rock! Better yet, we would love to see this awesome bike being used in a wedding...okay all you creative DIY wedding peeps out there, let's see what you can do with this on your next wedding event. Available at Madsencycles.com

Give LOVE, get LOVE

We want to tell every one about our good friend Tenny Hovsepian's fantastic LOVE collection available at Avanessi.com. I think every bride and bride-to-be should have one of these as a simple reminder of how lucky they are to have someone to love and be loved. Sweet and simple but so powerful. 

A bit of history about Tenny. Tenny is a jewelry designer from Los Angeles who started a line quite recently with a very basic and simple concept, LOVE.  Why?  Love was lacking both in her life and surroundings, so as soon as she started giving love to all, she immediately started getting it right back and it was contagious. Tenny created her jewelry line as a reminder to put love into everything she did but also to expose love. They also love charity and each month, Avanessi.com donates a percentage of the retail sales from their LOVE collection to a carefully chosen charity.  They support 12 different charities per year and coming soon, they will  have a special piece made for the Susan G. Komen foundation.

Judy + Johnny Jamaica Wedding

Okay folks, we've finally had a chance to settle down in our new studio and we have the perfect wedding to feature as our first blog from our new studio...Judy and Johnny's Jamaica wedding.  A little back story about JJ square fabulous wedding, ready? here goes. J+J's wedding was originally set for the Riviera Maya in Mexico but with two weeks to go to the I do's, the couple decided to move the wedding location to Montego Bay, Jamaica due to the whole swine flu thing.  The amazing part is all 40 guests were able to switched their flight arrangements from Mexico to Jamaica in a heartbeat. The wedding ceremony was gorgeous and we could not ask for a better location. Of course, it's monsoon season in Jamaica so there was an hour delay prior to the ceremony due to rain. But when the rain stopped, the beautiful puffy clouds and blue skies reappeared for a picture perfect backdrop...yah! The beautiful location and the amazing warm weather set the perfect tone for these New Yorkers to get the  party jumpin' in no time. We had alot of fun and was honored to be Judy and Johnny's wedding photographer.

Name and place card design

Wedding ceremony program booklet

Reception details

It's a wrap!

Wow...one of my favorite photograph of Judy+Johnny