“airplanes”

I’ve been dying to post these pics from my recent trip to New Zealand!!!! This was an extra special engagement session for me not only because I got to travel to such a cool destination, but also because I was documenting the trip for a very special friend of mine. I have known Jackie for about 9 years now and through the years, we have lived, laughed, cried and danced together . We have shared many life experiences together and I am so happy that she finally found her H.A.L.F. in Corey . After Corey proposed, we talked about doing a destination engagement session, but somewhere relatively close. So where did we end up?! Only 6,500 miles from Los Angeles duh. This you-can’t-pass-up-deal surfaced for New Zealand, we trade a few text messages and hours later we booked our tickets for a 4 day trip! Did I mention we booked our tickets only two weeks prior to our departure date?! Yes this was very spontaneous, but ended up being very worthwhile, as you can see from the pics below . We flew a total of 26 hours to spend about 72 hours in New Zealand. Even the customs people thought we were crazy. Another talented photographer, Jason Huang of Table 4 Weddings and one of his couples joined in on the spontaneity and the six of us were off to hopefully take some nice photos and more importantly find some sheep!!!!

We stayed in Auckland and spent all of our time in Northern New Zealand. If you ever plan to go to New Zealand, I would suggest going for more than 4 days so you can travel to the Southern region where I hear it is just breathtaking (the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed there). I have to say though Northern New Zealand did not disappoint. And we were lucky because although it was the start of their winter, it was not that cold (maybe by Los Angeles standards it was) and hardly rained.

Our plan to maximize our 72 hours in New Zealand was to sight-see and do our photo shoots at the same time. The first stop was Brick Bay Winery where I found what I was looking for – SHEEEEEP!!!! I was probably the only one excited. I REALLY wanted to do a pose with the sheep but as we would get closer to them, they would run away. I think it was because I was wearing my boots with the fur, my UGGs . I tried to apologize to them but they weren’t having any of it. So enough of my rambling and let me introduce you to the happy couple and some of my favorite sights in New Zealand :

SHEEEEEP!!!

Jackie waited and waited but the sheep never came around .

But her man did show up!

And because people say when I travel, I never have any pics of myself (there’s usually no one to take it). Here’s a lil’ one of me and somebody .

On our second day, we spent the morning in Auckland and a beautiful day it was. I just love the light and feel of these next few photographs:

We then ventured to Piha Beach for more coastal scenery. Piha Beach is also known for their black sand. Everything was just stunning!

Team Jason ahead:

And just when we were about to wrap up the shoot, the light turned absolutely golden and delicious. The next several photos reminded us of how special it was to be shooting in such a unique place! So breathtaking! I was in photog heaven.

While searching for an engagement dress, Jackie actually found her wedding dress and brought it along to New Zealand (Ok I kinda made her)! But, you are going to have to wait for pics in her wedding dress until after the wedding. Here are some sneak peeks though and if you win if can tell me the designer of this dress from these photos!

All of the food in New Zealand was very fresh and organic. Had the best fish n’ chips ever while I was there:

And here we all are! Yes we are tourists lol and no I don’t know who took this pic. I think it was the ice cream man. Who needs beautiful scenery when you got a nice big picture frame lol.

It’s a wrap! So long New Zealand!

Be sure to leave some comment lovin’ and also check out Jason’s blog for more photographs!