Dina is amazing. She is so lovely to work with and she know how to get the shot! I hired her for my engagement photos and to photograph the wedding, and she is just the kindest sweetest person in addition to being the absolute best at what she does. I haven't seen any of the wedding photos yet, will post an update, but after our amazing engagement session, I cannot wait. read more

Andrena Photography - Event Photography Near Me

I heard of Dina through a friend. After looking at her website ,I was really impressed and interested to speak with her. Dina is great at returning messages with efficiency, a friendly nature, and professionalism. My wedding was in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Northern California. A bit of a trek for her and her second shooter but they were willing to come out my way per very reasonable cost. I met Dina at our hotel on the way to the rehearsal dinner. She is so kind and passionate. She offered to view the wedding site a day in advance free of any additional fees, so that she'd be as prepared as possible. It is obvious that she loves her job because she thinks of everything and comes prepared. Just having had a child, I was a heavier bride and truthfully I hate being photographed. Dina told me how to pose to look my best and shot my pictures from many creative angles. She was always real and made me feel comfortable- no easy feat. I felt like Dina and Yoshi were a close intimate part of our wedding. Many guests commented on how dedicated the photographers were to the process of capturing so many special moments. Even the most hard to please family members loved the final product. Dina was especially sweet to my beloved flower girl (the curious 8 year old eyeing the camera gear and jumping in photos) and got so many great shots of my grandparents. After the wedding, Dina stayed in close touch with updates on the pictures and always responded immediately to any questions. Her passionate and friendly nature has always continued. I love my wedding album. I had her design it completely. It's amazing. Thank you Dina and Yoshi!! I would book them again for a photo shoot! read more

If I could leave ten stars for Andrena Photography I would. After years being behind the lens, I decided it was finally time to have my husband and I photographed for our anniversary. I've long admired Dina's work from Andrena Photography. When I was married in 2006, photography was a very different. From the moment I contacted Andrena Photography, I felt like Dina really listened to my vision and wanted to get to know my husband and I. I was initially nervous to be in front of the camera, but Dina put me at ease. She guided us and made us feel so comfortable. It was such an unforgettable experience, one that I will cherish forever. When it was time to select our favorite photos I was presented with so many beautiful portraits and had a very hard time narrowing down. She helped us select images and was so patient when we were indecisive. Our album is so elegant. I am beyond thrilled with my larger art prints as well. There was incredible attention to every detail in all that Dina does. Her professionalism and talent showed not only throughout the photo shoot but of course once I saw the final product! Working with Dina was like being reunited with a long lost friend. I highly recommend Andrena Photography not only for my extraordinary experience, but for her talent and artistry! read more

Hiring Dina from Andrena Photography for my wedding was one of the best things I did. My outdoor wedding ended up being on one of the rainiest days Los Angeles ever had, so I was glad I hired someone with the creativity and technical skills to handle the most difficult situation a wedding could possibly face. Dina arrived early, handled me a bottle of champagne, told me not to worry, and immediately offered to do a free day-after session to ensure that we got some beautiful daylight photos for our album. I could not believe how helpful she was and how good she was at helping keep me calm. It rained seven inches and part of our tent collapsed before the ceremony, but she still made sure to take all the photos we wanted. The photo session we did a few days later was so much fun, and she worked for hours (for free!) to create a wonderful collection of photos for us. All our communications were great, and Dina always got right back to me if I had a question. I love our wedding photos so much! She and Yoshi captured all the action and emotion, as well as all our family and friends, some of whom traveled overseas to celebrate with us. She even got our wedding published in a magazine. I would recommend Dina to anyone looking for great photography from a really nice person who leaves no stone unturned to keep her clients happy. I can't believe how hard she works. Yoshi was also amazing. read more

My husband and I chose to go with Dina from Andrena Photography after seeing her in action at my friend's wedding that I was a bridesmaid in, and we are so happy we did. She was organized, efficient, very friendly, and of course takes beautiful photos. We did our engagement shoot at UCLA, and she had a great eye for finding great spots to shoot in that were not the typical locations. We chose to do a 9 photo collage of these pictures to display at our wedding, and got tons of compliments on it. As for the wedding day - we had an outdoor ceremony in Orange County at the end of April, and of course our luck (good?), it rained! We chose to still do the wedding outside anyway, and Dina was incredible, running all around to make the most of our time by taking family portraits while we were waiting for the coordinator to wipe down the seats for our guests, and with or without an umbrella to get all the key shots of our ceremony. We were very nervous about the photos but after seeing the proofs and the album, we are so incredibly happy we had Dina there on our wedding day. She made a rainy day into a gorgeous wedding album and beautiful memento for us to keep forever, and even included some extra shots free of charge for all the emotional stress from the unexpected rain! I highly recommend her for any event. Photos are your tangible memories, and Dina makes it her top priority that you get that and much more! read more

First off, this review has been LONG overdue as We had hired Dina as our wedding photographer almost a year ago but here I am since we absolutely LOVED her work. When looking for a wedding photographer, there are so many of them out there and it is really difficult to chose the right one. However someone in our family had worked with Dina at their wedding so we already know that she was so great. We looked at 1 or 2 more photographers and the finally decided to go with Dina. Right from the start, she was pretty responsive and clear on her services and the cost. Our engagement shoot turned out to be SO MUCH FUN. We did our shoot in Venice and when she was taking the pics, I didn't think much of all the different backgrounds but when we got the pics, I was so amazed. The pics were beyond amazing and I couldn't be happier. On our big day, she showed up on time with Yoshi and she had a plan for everything which I loved!! She tirelessly took plenty of pics, covering every single detail and even keeping the crowd in check for the group photos which in itself could have been a daunting task. Everyone in our families were very happy with her and Yoshi. After the wedding, the process for selecting pics for the album was pretty smooth and when I looked at the album, it brought tears to my eyes!! We could not have picked a better photographer. To sum up, in my opinion, Dina is one of the best photographers and we couldn't be happier with her and her team. We love you Dina!! I highly highly recommend her. read more

When we met Dina we thought she'd be a great fit for our rock n roll wedding. We did an engagement session first which was a bit hectic. Before the shoot I sent Dina some locations and said it wasn't necessary to do them all. I told her my top 3, one in our home with my 16 year old dog. Those were very important as my dog had been sick. However Dina was insistent we do all locations. We ended up with a very exhausting day and rushed through the shots with my dog because Dina wanted shots at sun set. And that was after yelling at me that our rooftop wasn't good enough. We also chose a location for our "save the date" photo that Dina suggested. Unfortunately we weren't able to use any of those pics because we didn't like them. When I asked Dina to see them as she was shooting, she refused. If I had seen them maybe we could have adjusted and gotten shots we wanted. In the end we got some beautiful photos. However she ended using it against me that she went "above and beyond" at our engagement session to shoot more hours, even though I told her not to. On wedding day as I was getting ready Dina was shooting my dress, shoes, etc. which was great. But we barely got any photos of me and my girls getting ready. And unfortunately my hair dresser couldn't get my hair right and caused us to run an hour late. I will say Dina dealt with it quite well at first, and managed to get some great shots of me in the room. Although I'm really sad no one thought to go on our beautiful balcony and take pictures with the view of the city. We finally got to shooting with my husband and bridal party, but had to rush through photos. I know its hard to wrangle a wedding party of 20 people, and I thought Dina was doing a good job. But a few times me and my husband had to yell to get everyone to quite down. I also found out later she pushed around a few of my bridesmaids and supposedly made one of the flower girls cry. We made it through almost all our locations but missed some shots I would have loved. I have no pictures with my flower girls and ring bearer, who are like my own kids. And our family portraits were after ceremony and we all ended up hating how we looked. I know this isn't Dina's fault, but maybe we could have been better prepared. Dina did a great job shooting the rest of the night. We ended up with about 1,400 pictures. It sounds like a lot, but I expected about 2,000. I know we lost an hour of shooting so i'm happy with what we got. A few weeks after wedding Dina sent our photos and they came out beautiful. We had 45 days to pick images for our album. Dina also said she'd give us a few pics ahead of time for thank you card. As I started picking photos I got bronchitis. My husband got walking pneumonia. And my 17 year old dog passed away. I didn't do anything for 2 weeks while I recovered. When I went back to picking photos I asked Dina for a few for our thank you cards. In my email I included a request for the photos by the end of the week if possible. Apparently that was too much for her to process and she flew off the handle. She emailed my husband behind my back to complain about me! I was in complete shock! I spoke to Dina and the phone call was the most bizarre conversation I ever had. I am in client service for a living and work with CEOs of million dollar companies. If I treated clients the way she treated me, I wouldn't have a job. She seemed to have no sense that we paid her a very large amount of money for a service. On the phone she raised her voice, spoke over me, told me I was a miserable bride and my bridesmaids spoke poorly about me, my vendors didn't like me, and even said my dog looked sickly as if I didn't know how to care for him. I had never been so insulted in my life, not to mention in complete shock of the sheer unprofessionalism of treating a client that way. She repeated over and over about her photography experience, as if that made it ok for her to treat a client this way. I don't think she liked having a creative, strong bride, with a photo background. I remained calm the entire call and tried to reason with her, to no avail. She even threatened to not provide our album for us, as if she was holding our images as leverage. So I bit my tongue, agreed to disagree. We finished our album and received it a few weeks later. The album came out gorgeous but I quickly noticed something was missing. No where on our album were our names or wedding date! Apparently Dina doesn't provide this. When I asked if she could fix it she said it was impossible and that our business was complete and her contract was fulfilled. Leaving me with a wedding album that doesn't have the biggest date of our lives on it. After a few emails, she agreed to fix it free of charge. I will say Dina's work is amazing and I am in no way discrediting her photography. But sometimes the experience can effect the way you feel about the work and unfortunately it left a bad taste in our mouth for Andrena Photography. read more

Dina's always been a favorite of mine, she's always had amazing work and is great person to work with! She knew how much I liked her work & wound up being a surprised 2nd shooter at my wedding! Her & Yoshi are an amazing team! So happy with them! read more

Best photographer ever! Well directed, transparent throughout the whole process, consistent communication. Couldn't of asked for anyone better to capture our special day! Money well spend will most definitely be using her again in the near future. read more

I've had the pleasure of working Dina on countless occasions! She always takes the best pictures of me Dj'ing weddings! Better than that she takes the most colorful pictures that I've seen anywhere... I must say that her eye for color cannot be compared to any other vendor... You will see it in all the shots she takes... Placement... Color... Lighting and snap! read more

Dina was by far one of the best decisions we made throughout our entire wedding process. When we first started planning our wedding, we immediately fell in love with Dina's work while stalking wedding blogs and knew that we wanted her if she happened to be available. Lucky for us, since we started the planning process a year in advance, Dina was available even though it was a long weekend during the summer, and we were absolutely thrilled! At our first meeting, we quickly knew Dina would be a perfect fit for us. She welcomed us into her home for our initial consultation and showed us lots of example albums, told us all about her background and style, and gave us much needed insight into the entire wedding planning process and what we should expect. None of the other photographers we had researched provided near as flawless albums with such attention detail. While booking, Dina was always available via phone, text, email and as many in person consultations as we wanted. She helped us create a custom package for our multi day event. While she had a certain set number of hours dedicated to our events in the contract, I'd have to say she probably spent more than twelve hours above our contract with us thru that weekend alone not including our engagement shoot day. Our package included an egagement shoot which Dina helped facilitate getting the locations that we wanted and were memorable to our relationship. She spent over 14 hours that day creating the most jaw dropping shots. Both of our families kept reminding us after seeing the pictures that we shouldn't think we look anywhere near as good in real life as Dina made us look in those pictures. She made us feel comfortable and relaxed throughout the entire day (she could tell my husband was nervous to start with as we'd never been professionally photographed before so she bought him a couple of his favorite black label shots to ease his nerves before the day started--which apparently helped with his posing a lot!). She never rushed us and the final product truly shows her dedication to her job and work. Come wedding day, I wasn't sure how any photographer would be able to capture all our special moments and capture all the required family shots. Dina did it. She was able to put me at ease so I didn't have to take the stress of our fashionably late family members and somehow told me that them being late wouldn't matter, she'd get the job done. Not once did Dina settle for a shot. She managed to get drunk uncles, cousins, aunties and friends to all line up and get the required pictures in and then was still able to capture tons of natural shots, decor shots, and gave my husband and I over four hours of couplely shot time. Following our wedding, when it was album time, we had just returned from our honeymoon and had over 3000 pictures to go thru. Dina allowed us to extend any picture picking and album deadlines to allow our families who were traveling to come back and help us decide. Not only that, during the album selection process, I was diagnosed with a medical condition that left me in shock and too distracted to continue on with album making at that time. I sent Dina one email explaining and she called back immediately and said we could hold off on finishing the albums and our entire contract until I was ready and healthy again. From that time onwards, she sent me regular emails and texts (none about business) but just to check up on my health, offer me tips and personal insight, and definitely gave me hope with all I was going thru. She let me into her own personal experiences and helped me each step of the way as a role model. She never rushed me, and thru the entire process my family feel in love with not only her work, but her as a person. Once I was healthy again (mind you Dina let me wait a whole two years post wedding and until I was ready to talk albums/business again), Dina was there ready to work and get our albums done in a very short time--we wanted them as the perfect Xmas gifts for our families (yes, two years later). She gave us options to help turn the albums into a wedding story of my husband's and my day without turning it into a dry family album but still allowing us to include all the pictures we wanted. She continually was in contact over the phone and via email to update me on different album options and gave me much desired insight into how to go about the albums without adding too much to our budget and ultimately she created a product we have absolutely fallen in love with. The compliments we have received on our albums continue thru today. We owe it all to Dina for giving us such a wonderful memory of our special day and helping our families and us to continually relive the day thru her stunning work. I would recommend Dina to all couples planning weddings. You will not only fall in love with her work, but also with the kind, affectionate, easy to work with and trustworthy person that she is. read more

My then fiancé, now wife was insistent that we hire Dina from Andrena Photography for our wedding. After checking out her website, I could see there was something special about her pictures. After meeting with Dina and sharing our wedding vision, we booked her and could not have been more happy with that decision. Though the process, Dina has become more than our wedding photographer, as she is now our friend. She has a gift for photography and when you see her pictures, you'll know what I mean. We had a large 600 person wedding and she and her staff were able to provide all the pictures that truly captured a day full of special moments. She was able to navigate through all the wedding chaos and create such a lovely, harmonious wedding album. I whole heartedly recommend anyone getting married to check out Andrena Photography. She's simply the best. read more

I contacted Dina about hiring her for an Indian wedding. After contacting so many different photographers, each with their own style, expertise, prices, choosing a photographer can be very difficult. Hopefully this review helps anyone that is looking for a thorough/genuine review. After working with Dina, I couldn't be more pleased and recommend her without any hesitations. If you are looking for an experienced and innovative photographer who can both capture beautiful photography AND CREATE IT (which I have found to be a difficult quality to find in past hired photographers,) look no further. From the very beginning, Dina was transparent as to what services she offered and extremely helpful/pleasant. She asked insightful questions regarding our time-line/schedule and pointed out areas of concern that might limit/hinder getting the best photographs possible while offering constructive suggestions (she was right on all of them in retrospect.) Not only was Dina's work self-evident when it released (her work was released within a few weeks), but it was obvious to me during our wedding festivities that she was a professional in how she engaged my guests, bridal parties, wedding vendors, etc. While an Indian wedding often runs into delays despite how planned out it may be and some guests may not be aware of what creates a nice photo, Dina always remembered the 'big picture' of what the bride/groom wanted and did her best to make sure the bride/groom got what they asked for in the end, despite any setbacks. This quality about Dina and her team (her second shooter had all the same traits and qualities as Dina) meant a lot to us as other vendors often blamed others and had excuses for unexpected setbacks/obstacles. Dina and her team made it a point to find a way to overcome setbacks and obstacles efficiently without compromising their work or demanding extra costs. THIS IS A RARE QUALITY TO FIND in any wedding vendor. For an Indian wedding or any other event needing photography, I highly recommend Dina without any reservations. You can trust her to bring a team that matches her quality and professionalism. You can trust her that she will deliver a product that you paid for PLUS MORE. You can trust that she brings her A-game and has an eye to capture/create beautiful photography. Her other reviews and website further corroborate this. I will definitely be hiring Dina for any of my photography needs in the future and be recommending her to all my friends/family. read more

Dina's photography is gorgeous. Her colors are vibrant and her attention to detail is amazing. I highly recommend her as a wedding photographer. read more

I love working with Dina - she is very sweet and passionate about her work. I have had numerous brides give me great feedback about her wedding photography. Definitely a great vendor to add to your wedding day! read more

Where do I start? Dina is simply AMAZING!! She is one of the best decisions I made in my wedding planning. She is personable, makes you smile, gives you enough direction when you need it otherwise she lets you do you.. all of this is to say she captures the most intimate, priceless moments of your wedding. The pictures are gorgeous and will truly last a lifetime. THANK YOU DINA! I would refer her to any of my friends in a heartbeat.!!!!!!! read more

We just had an Indian wedding in Fresno, California and used Andrena Photography! Dina is extremely good at her job. From noticing water bottles in a background of a photo, to someone not looking at the camera, she will fix it! All the pictures from the wedding of my brother and his wife came out absolutely stunning! She has a great sense for what makes a photography beautiful, whether it be lighting or the scenery. Thank you Dina! read more