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Claire and Eric’s wedding is the end of an era for us. Claire is the last of the three Christiansen sisters to get married and we’ve been there for all three. It’s truly been an honor and a privilege. Each of the three weddings has been unique and matched the couple perfectly. Clair and Eric had a golden hour wedding at his parents home in Santa Clarita. It was a great way to end the Christiansen trilogy.

If you want to see Claire’s sister’s weddings, here are the links: Katie and Adi | Alicia and Colin.

It’s hard to argue with light like this… Eric’s family home is a beautiful space and it is filled with golden light in the afternoon.

Getting Ready

You might wonder why a wedding dress is hanging in a uninstalled door. Claire and Eric’s wedding was being held at Eric’s family home and they built a new barn just for the event. Of course it happened that the barn wasn’t 100% finished yet. The walls were still open so the wedding had a rustic/real feel to it. You’ll see the unfinished walls in the reception photos.

Claire got ready at a nearby hotel and they were remodeling one of their floors. The construction team had built and set this door in the hall to block off the wing under construction. The congruence with the barn was too good to pass up. As a bonus, there was beautiful light streaming in from the windows by the elevators.

Claire’s twin sister Alicia (who’s wedding we photographed last year) works in the wedding industry now and handled Claire’s makeup.

One thing about the Christiansen woman, they are almost always laughing, smiling or crying with joy.

We photographed Katie’s wedding back in 2015 in Beverly Hills.

To the Barn

The barn is new, built for the wedding and as happens with construction projects, it wasn’t finished totally on time. The unfinished interior didn’t dampen the festivities one bit. If anything it added a metric ton of character to the night.

It turns out that, when your husband to be gives you a sweet letter, people cry which can lead to makeup issues. A fan can fix that problem quick as Claire demonstrated.

Katie and Adi have their first daughter now and she is adorable. Katie even got her and the baby matching spiky shoes.

The Details

Claire and Eric had simply beautiful decorations that matched the location perfectly.

The Ceremony

Their ceremony was under a huge oak tree just before sunset.

Golden Hour Wedding Portraits

You never know what conditions you are going to get during a wedding, but it’s hard to do anything other than take great pictures with light like this. The California sun and dust in the sky caused everything to glow golden. Weddings like this define “Golden Hour.”

The Reception

After the ceremony and formal portraits we headed into the barn for the reception.

Claire got her sense of fashion from her dad. She exchanged her heals for these fabulous sequined sneakers. They match her dad’s blue velvet shoes marvelously.