Featured Wedding · La Jolla, California
Matthew & Maya at St. Mary's Star of the Sea
A Nuptial Mass at a Spanish Colonial parish above the La Jolla coast.
A Nuptial Mass at a Spanish Colonial parish above the La Jolla coast.
St. Mary's Star of the Sea in La Jolla has stood above the Pacific coast since 1906 — a Spanish Colonial parish whose Byzantine mosaic apse rises above the altar in golds and deep blues, where every Mass feels both intimate and quietly grand. The light that finds its way through the clerestory in the late morning is unlike any other parish I have photographed in Southern California. It is light that asks to be photographed.
Matthew and Maya were married here on a cool La Jolla morning, with family who had traveled from across the country and the world to be present. The day began at La Valencia, the old Spanish-style hotel above the cove, and moved to the parish for the Mass — stone, icons, and visiting priests before a family that filled the church.
The Mass began with the visiting priest entering through the back of the church, the bridal party following, and Maya at the end on her father's arm. There is a particular kind of quiet that settles into a Catholic church just before the bride begins her processional — not silence exactly, but a settling. The room knows what is about to happen.
What followed was the Nuptial Mass as the Church gives it to us: the Liturgy of the Word, the exchange of consent, the nuptial blessing, the consecration, and the first Communion received together as husband and wife. Matthew and Maya knelt at the predella; the celebrant gave a homily worth keeping; the cantor filled the space above the choir loft with music that belonged to the room.
When a Catholic couple invites a photographer into the sanctuary, the work that matters most happens in moments that planners almost never ask about: the exchange of consent, the nuptial blessing, the elevation of the host, the first Communion received as husband and wife. These are the photographs you will treasure for a lifetime.
I do not stage the consecration. I do not interrupt the priest. I do not use flash during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. I move to a corner the celebrant has approved and I make myself small. What I am watching for in those minutes is not drama — it is what is actually happening at the altar.
The recessional at a Catholic wedding always feels like the room exhaling. The Mass has been received, the marriage is real, the family is suddenly on its feet and clapping, and the couple is walking back up the aisle in a way no one walks at any other moment of their life.
From the parish, we walked the short stretch back toward La Jolla Cove for portraits. The afternoon light was the kind of cool, salt-edged Pacific light that belongs to this part of the California coast and to nowhere else. Matthew and Maya were, by then, easy with each other in front of the camera in the way that only married couples are.
I am a practicing Catholic and a member of the Neocatechumenal Way. I work with a limited number of couples each year so that each wedding receives my full attention — from our first conversation to the final delivered gallery. If you are planning a Catholic wedding in San Diego, La Jolla, or anywhere in the Diocese of San Diego, I would be honored to hear about it.
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