Karla and Jeff || A Laid-Back Los Angeles Wedding (with Neon!!)

I feel like Jeff may have been one of the first people I met when I first moved to San Diego, twenty years ago. He’s one of those people who has only gotten better with age, growing into himself and pursuing his passions, and leaving an impact on his community through his work with the unhoused in LA. When he told me he was getting married, I didn’t really know Karla at all, but I knew she had to be amazing if he wanted to spend his life with her, and after spending more time with her, that really doesn’t even begin to cover it. She’s one of those folks who has found a way to stay soft and gentle inside without being a pushover, and it’s hard to spend more than a minute with her without wanting to grin.

Getting ready together

There are a lot of ways to structure your time on your wedding day, and whether you plan to see each other before the ceremony does have some impact on what we can do during that time. While I’ll never push anyone into one option or another, whenever I talk with a couple who is reconsidering age-old traditions, I usually suggest they consider whether it might be right to go one step further than a first look, and just get ready together. Often times, I spend more time with each member of the couple on their wedding day than they spend with each other. Karla and Jeff opted to get ready in the same room, which didn’t lead us to many extra photo ops, as there was a lot to manage pre-wedding, but it DID give them some extra time together and also made it easier to walk down the block to the spot we chose for photos!

Wedding Portraits as Unique as the People in Them

When trying to decide where to take their portraits, they mentioned they’d be up for anything, and we floated several ideas before settling on the Museum of Neon Art. We made the necessary arrangements ahead of time, and the staff were helpful, welcoming, and honestly pretty stoked to have us.

Finding the Perfect Venue

Karla and Jeff had a pretty sizable group of guests to accommodate, and with folks with hearing and mobility impairments, wiggly little kids, and dance maniacs all in the same place, finding a spot that would make everyone happy was really important to them. They settled on the Women’s Twentieth Century Club, which was big enough to host everyone, had an outdoor lawn area perfect for their ceremony, with room for lawn games and picnic blankets for people to chill and little ones to get their wiggles out. They hired an ASL interpreter to make sure everyone could enjoy the ceremony. Their thoughtfulness really paid off in terms of experience. Every single person in attendance had a blast! And here are the rest of the photos to prove it. 🙂