Santa Barbara Wedding Photography | Southern California Wedding Photography | Santa Barbara Boudoir Photography

Santa Barbara Historical Museum Wedding Photography | Samantha + Brooks

ashleightaylorphotography — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:18:14 +0000

Saturday was a very special day… Brooks + Samantha got married at The Santa Barbara Historical Museum!! YAY!! I had been counting down to their wedding for many reasons… First, I adore these two!! Over the past 4 months I’ve actually gotten to know them very well and they feel like more than clients, they feel like friends! I also adore their family! Brooks’ father, Bryan, was our realtor and made the very scary and stressful first-time home buyer experience so easy. He was there for me and AJ during a stressful time and we felt like he truly looked out for us every step of the way! So there is a closeness there too. A few months ago, Bryan asked me to photograph Brooks’ grandma’s 80th birthday and through that experience I got to know the family even more. By the time the wedding rolled around, I knew so many of the guests. It added to the already warm feel of the day! I was also so exited for this wedding because I got to work with the amazing mother-daughter wedding planning duo Colette + Kaitlin of La Fete Weddings. They are wedding icons in Santa Barbara (heck, in all of SoCal) so it was definitely a delight to be working with them! As you can see there was lots to be excited about with this wedding!

And… the wedding did not disappoint! It was such a beautiful day, both because of the out-pouring of love that was felt, and also because of the stunning details. Samantha looked gorgeous in her La Sposa bridal gown. The dress had a very sexy Spanish Flamenco-esque vibe to it which I loved! The Santa Barbara Historical Museum and Covarrubias Courtyard are old adobe structures and definitely have that Spanish/Mexican influence. So it was fun to see other details through out the day that alluded to the history of the venue– from Sammie’s gown, to the taco bar for dinner, to the succulent escort cards! It was all so charming!

But the highlight of the day for me was the expression on Brooks’ face as he watched Samantha walk down the aisle. Brooks’ eyes welled up with tears and you could see how overcome he was with love in that moment as Samantha came towards him. It is so wonderful to see a guy love his girl so much, and let me tell you, Brooks really loves Samantha! I also swooned over the heartfelt toasts, and of course Brooks + Samantha’s amazingly choreographed first dance! These two have the moves!

Thanks so much to my hubby AJ and also Megan Sharp for assisting me on this wedding! Also much love to La Fete Weddings for coordination, Simply Bouquets for the gorgeous bouquets and ceremony decor, and Pure Joy Catering for a killer Mexican feast! Check out all the beauty and love below….

The details leave me breathless…

A little bling never hurt anyone!

Sammie was so calm before she got dressed. She just wanted to soak in the day

A sweet moment from the First Look! I LOVE First Looks!

The First Look allowed us to get many of the group photos done before the ceremony… which also meant extra time for fun bridal party shots like this!

Vanity Fair, ladies! Work it out!

The boys opted for some more Ninja-like moves

Okay so this one just makes me laugh. Brooks decided he wanted a shot where they all stared straight ahead and looked like zombies (Brooks is a goofball, yes). But the funny thing was, though it may sound easy to stare ahead with a blank stare, it’s actually quite challenging. The groomsmen had a hard time holding it together!

The CEREMONY! LOVE.

Cutest thing ever!!!

Brooks’ face as Sammie walks down the aisle? PRICELESS. This is why I do what I do.

I had so much fun shooting the romantics! I love this part of the day so much! And the Historical Museum was such a great and rustic backdrop!

Sammie, you are STUNNING!

SERIOUSLY?? GORGEOUS!

FIERCE!

I adored the little succulent escort cards!

The reception details were so cute! Lots of blooms in mason jars and burlap table runners! Oh and chalkboard table numbers! Cute cute cute!

The first dance!

I don’t usually post toast pictures, but I thought these two below were so touching. So much love was felt!!

To see more from this lovely wedding feel free to check out SLIDESHOW below or watch it by clicking here:

PLANNING A WEDDING? Contact Ashleigh | View More Of Her Online Portfolio | Follow Ashleigh on Twitter | Become a Fan on Facebook | Stalk on Pinterest

i heart this: VEEP

ashleightaylorphotography — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:40:55 +0000

So lately I’ve been talking about HBO… but it’s only because they’ve been killing it with awesome programming! One of my current HBO obsessions is the new comedy VEEP staring Julia Louis-Dreyfus (who, ps, is such a wonderfully funny and adorable actress)! So Veep is about a Vice President of The United States and in this particular case she isn’t totally all together! She isn’t exactly an airhead, just someone who puts her foot in her mouth, seems to make a lot of errors, and is very self serving. Hrm. Sounds like a lot of politics today! And really that’s all the show is… making fun of what politics and politicians have become. It’s incredibly comical, clever and sometimes so realistic it’s downright sad. I’ve really been enjoying it!

Do any of you watch Veep? Thoughts?

Contact Ashleigh | View More Of Her Online Portfolio | Follow Ashleigh on Twitter | Become a Fan on Facebook | Stalk on Pinterest

Malibu Engagement Photography | Stacy + Sebastian – {Callaway Gable Associate Photographer}

ashleightaylorphotography — Thu, 10 May 2012 23:28:40 +0000

I have been so lucky both last year and this year to work as an associate photographer for Callaway Gable! Basically, I have taken on some extra clients through Callaway Gable. I get to shoot these weddings and engagements as the lead photographer, but I don’t deal with the editing of photos or delivering of images. It’s been really cool because it has allowed me to shoot more and work with more awesome couples, without the extra work of post-production. Pretty rad! It’s also been fantastic working for and learning from such amazing, award winning photogs like Allie + Brian of Callaway Gable! Such an great opportunity that I could not be more thankful for.

Stacy + Sebastian are one of my Callaway Gable clients and I just adore them!!! They will be getting married this Summer and I am so excited for it! If it is anything like our engagement, I know it will be completely amazing! For our engagement we started off shooting at The Lumber Yard in Malibu. And then we finished the session at one of my faves, El Matador Beach! Awesome! Check out the photos below!

How fliipin’ attractive are these two??? SERIOUSLY.

Stacy made this cute little banner! Love it!

SEXY!

This pic is one of my faves! Ever!

Stacy, you are radiant!

PLANNING A WEDDING? Contact Ashleigh | View More Of Her Online Portfolio | Follow Ashleigh on Twitter | Become a Fan on Facebook | Stalk on Pinterest

i heart this: Los Agaves Restaurant, Sanat Barbara

ashleightaylorphotography — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:24:56 +0000

I am a food nerd! That is true. And one of my favorite types of food is Mexican Food! YUMMY! Lucky for me, I live in Santa Barbara where Mexican food is plentiful. We have lots of options to choose from in town and some are quite famous. But the truth is, my number one favorite place in SB to grab some south of the border cuisine is at Los Agaves on Milpas Street! Here are my favorite things about Los Agaves:

-Salsa Bar: Chips and Salsa is my fuel. My favorite snack. It’s like oxygen to me. And I have high standards. I want crispy chips, fresh from the fryer. And I want flavorful, spicy salsa. Lucky for me, Los Agaves has excellent tortilla chips. But they also have a salsa bar with about 6 salsas to feast upon. They have so many varieties from habanero to chipotle to an avocado salsa to tomatillo and so much more!!! And they are all equally good. I love being able to mix up the salsa flavors and enjoy them. Honestly, sometimes I come here for that salsa bar alone.

-Yummy Seafood: I love seafood!! Some restaurants have the yummiest seafood and others the seafood is slightly sketch or leaves something to be desired. Los Agaves has super fresh and yummy fish and shrimp and they have so many different preparations! I love the Baja Shrimp Taco special and also their chiles stuffed with shrimp and cheese (called Chiles Nortenos). They also have seafood molcajetes and fajitas which look divine, and seafood enchiladas! Yum!

-Tortillas! the tortillas here are fresh and yummy! A must at a good Mexican joint!

-Friendly service: Everyone here is always so happy and nice which makes it that much better!

All in all I adore Los Agaves, and it is always one of my first choices to go to on date night! Yum!!!

What is your fave Mexican food place and why?

Contact Ashleigh | View More Of Her Online Portfolio | Follow Ashleigh on Twitter | Become a Fan on Facebook | Stalk on Pinterest

Santa Barbara Boudoir Photography | Sexiness Unveiled

ashleightaylorphotography — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:26:48 +0000

I truly believe boudoir is all about celebrating who you are as a woman in this moment of your life. It is about embracing the present. And it’s about loving yourself. I work with women of all ages and at all kinds of transitions in their lives. I work a lot with married women celebrating a big anniversary, single women celebrating a new move, new promotion or career, or a big birthday. I work with moms of young children who need more than anything to feel glamorous and sexy again (because as I’ve heard it can be very hard to feel sexy when you are cleaning spit up out of your hair). And of course, I also tend to work a lot with brides.

It makes sense that I would work a lot with brides, because well, I am also a wedding photographer and already have a lot of clientele in that area! And it’s fabulous! I know for a fact that most of my brides spend about a year killing themselves to get “fit” for the wedding day. And they also do a lot of other beauty maintenance rituals too. I mean let’s face it, brides work hard to look dang good on their big day! And sure they will have fabulous wedding photos to show for it (especially if they work with me as their wedding photog, duh!!!) but when you stop to think about it, there’s so much more that should be documented during this special time in a woman’s life beyond wedding photos! Show off that rockin’ bod– I mean show it off uncovered! In about 40 years, you will be glad you did! You can tell your grandkids what a little vixen you used to be! And also don’t forget the other fabulous benefit of a bridal boudoir shoot– a very sexy wedding gift to your partner! When you hand off that album of saucy photos, you can be sure you will get your honeymoon started off right! Ooooh yeah.

So anyways, I am very excited to share with you one such bridal boudoir session, taken at my Santa Barbara Boudoir Marathon in March. I loved the bride’s veil by Petal and Thorn! And the fabulous make up was by LunaBella! Enjoy

Just gorgeous!!!

FIERCE! Work it girl!

Those eyes! What a stunner! Your soon-to-be-hubby is a lucky man!

Interested in BOUDOIR? Contact Ashleigh | View More Of Her Online Portfolio | Follow Ashleigh on Twitter | Become a Fan on Facebook | Stalk on Pinterest

i heart this: HBO’s GIRLS

ashleightaylorphotography — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:05:23 +0000

It is no secret at all that I LOVE HBO. Pretty much the only TV I watch is either on Travel Channel, Food Network/Cooking Channel, HGTV, NBC, HBO and Showtime. And of those channels HBO is king! I mean come on people, it’s not TV, it’s HBO!!!! So HBO has a new comedy out called Girls… and the show has garnered a little backlash… but I still find it hilarious. The best way to describe the show is… it’s basically Sex And The City for early twenty-somethings rather than thirty-somethings. Think Carrie Bradshaw before her career clicked, she could afford the Manolos, and was going on bad dates but wasn’t as savvy to even acknowledge they were bad yet. It’s pretty funny and reminds me a lot of college and the couple years immediately after. There are moments of the show where I clearly see myself as a 22 year (embarrassing as that is to admit)… like when one character tells her parents “Do you know how lucky you are? I could be a drug addict!” (Hi. Yes. Totally guilty of saying that to my parents once or twice). But a lot of it isn’t so much that I see myself in it but other girls I went to school with. It speaks to me and is full of good chuckles. The show is only a few episodes in, so it is hard to know if it will continue with the hilarity or have a long run. But for now it is funny and I am slightly kicking myself that I didn’t come up with the whole thing myself! hehe!

Have you checked out the show GIRLS? Thoughts?

Contact Ashleigh | View More Of Her Online Portfolio | Follow Ashleigh on Twitter | Become a Fan on Facebook | Stalk on Pinterest

i heart this: GAME OF THRONES

ashleightaylorphotography — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:20:15 +0000

HBO’s Game of Thrones is definitely my favorite TV show on the airwaves right now. And it’s probably in my top 10 of favorite TV shows ever. Do you watch it?? You should because it is AMAZING! The sheer production value and scale of it alone is worth a watch. It’s seriously like watching a mini-movie every week! To be honest I am not really a fantasy genre person and was highly skeptical of the show before it premiered last year. But since I generally love everything HBO produces I decided to give it a shot! To my surprise I not only adore it… I NERD out on it! What got me hooked on the show was how grounded in reality it is. There is only a little CGI and the characters are very human. It’s not just a simplistic good vs evil story. It’s more complicated. The way humanity really is. But there is a big plot, tons of characters and locations… it’s a lot to keep straight! So I really enjoy nerding out on HBO.com’s interactive viewer’s guide and reading all the family trees, back-story, and using the interactive maps to delve deeper in the world of the show. YEP, so basically what I’m telling you is the show has made me a complete, total, unapologetic nerd. The only thing I haven’t done yet is read the books… because I don’t want to spoil the show for myself! hehe!

Any other Game of Thrones nerds out there? If so, who’s your favorite character?

PLANNING A WEDDING? Contact Ashleigh | View More Of Her Online Portfolio | Follow Ashleigh on Twitter | Become a Fan on Facebook | Stalk on Pinterest

Santa Barbara Boudoir Photography | Simply Sexy

ashleightaylorphotography — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:16:15 +0000

Sometimes we forget it, but the truth is sexiness is in the little moments. It’s in simplicity. Like running your fingers through your loose, messy hair. Or putting on your man’s dress shirt and taking in his smell. Or biting into something profoundly delicious. Or how soft your skin is. Yep, little quiet sexy moments are everywhere. And I adore them. While a boudoir shoot certainly has some fantasy aspects to it, and I love getting my clients to dress up and play supermodel, I never forget to capture the simpler side to their sexy too. I always like to do at least one look that’s just natural. That’s just about who you are. Maybe in a tank top and panties, maybe in your man’s shirt or just between the sheets. I like those raw moments because that is when I can capture the core of who someone is and what makes them a total knock out!

Check out these simply sexy photos and you’ll see what I mean!

The light was just amazing!!

Smokin’ hot.

Nothing sexier than a girl between the sheets…

HOT!

Enjoying yourself and laughing is seriously sexy.

THAT FACE. Oh my word, hearts are stopping across the interwebs for that face!

RIDICULOUS! Nothing hotter.

Interested in BOUDOIR? Contact Ashleigh | View More Of Her Online Portfolio | Follow Ashleigh on Twitter | Become a Fan on Facebook | Stalk on Pinterest

InstaLife

ashleightaylorphotography — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:27:11 +0000

This year has been…. strange. Good. Exciting. But strange. Everything has happened so much differently than expected. I’ve grown and changed and experienced more than I thought I would. I’ve put a lot of my energy into settling and nesting in Santa Barbara. More so than I anticipated. I guess I’ve needed it that way. But my regret is that I’ve let my blogging become sporadic and erratic. I go through spurts of blogging well and then other periods of deafening blog silence. Pretty sad considering my husband recently did a killer power point on what it takes to be a good blogger…I feel like I’ve failed on all accounts!

But that’s life. We are human. We can’t be perfect all the time. Sometimes life pulls us in other directions. But as I’ve said before: I’m now back to blogging regularly. Hopefully I mean it this time!

Yep, the first quarter of 2012 has gone by in a blur. So much has happened. And in someways I feel so little has happened. But through it all I’ve had my trusty instagram app with me. So this is my InstaLife from mid February-mid April. I guess we can conclude from these photos that I am a crazy cat lady, a food-junkie, and a sometimes stylish person.

Contact Ashleigh | View More Of Her Online Portfolio | Follow Ashleigh on Twitter | Become a Fan on Facebook | Stalk on Pinterest

Santa Barbara Boudoir Photography | Being Brave Always

ashleightaylorphotography — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:23:35 +0000

In order for us all to live our lives in the best, fullest way possible we must be brave. As I grow older I’ve come to realize bravery isn’t a single act that’s committed once in someone’s life… it’s a lifestyle. It’s a mentality. It’s a muscle we exercise over and over again. I adore boudoir photography so much because it definitely helps exercise the bravery muscle in both me and my clients. Some of the gals I work with openly share their fears about doing a session. And I get it… being photographed baring it all (both literally and figuratively) is not something that is normal or easy to do. The fear should be there. And the fear should be something we conquer together! And we do! For so many of my clients, a boudoir session is one big act of bravery that opens the door to many more acts of bravery in their life. Yes, conquering the session gives them a new sense of confidence, empowerment and motivation. And they take that newfound courage and confidence into new areas of life! That always excites me and is why I love what I do!

But every so often, I meet a client who is already one super-duper brave confident babe. A client who probably shows me more about courage than I could ever hope to show her. This gal, let’s call her Miss X, is one such lady. Miss X rides her horses every weekend and is athletic. She is an open book and tells it like it is. She is a cancer survivor and works with an amazing charity to help other young adults facing cancer get through it. Oh and she has a full time job. Wow. If ever there was a woman who deserves to be captured just how she is, as her beautiful brave self, it is this gal. I was definitely super honored that she chose me to be the one to capture her sexiness, her light, her vulnerability, her all around bad-assery. She told me from the get go that she always wanted to do this type of shoot and she was doing it just for herself! LOVE. I know as brave as Miss X already was, that it still took some guts to do this shoot! And I hope it just strengthened her “bravery muscle” even more! I am so pleased with the results and honored to share all the sexy sides of this bad ass lady!

Brown eyed beauty.

Fierce shoes. Fierce vixen.

LOVED that she brought some of her horse-riding gear to the shoot! So frickin’ fun!

These two images pretty much sum her up. Low key girl in her riding boots. Who can glam it up and steal the show at a moment’s notice! LOVE that dual part of her personality!

GORGEOUS!

Thank you so much for letting me capture all that you are! You inspire me girl, and I am honored to know you!

Interested in BOUDOIR? Contact Ashleigh | View More Of Her Online Portfolio | Follow Ashleigh on Twitter | Become a Fan on Facebook | Stalk on Pinterest