David Cruz: Kodak 35mm Film Wedding Photographer from Oaxaca, Anchored in Los Angeles

My family and I immigrated from Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán, Oaxaca to Los Angeles in early 1993, just months after the '92 L.A. Riots, and lived in the MacArthur Park Rampart area two blocks away from the Original Tommy's on Beverly & Rampart for a few years before moving to South Central. And while I'm a Mexicant country bumpkin at heart, I'm a certified Beverly Hillbilly for serving time in the LAUSD — all twelve years — the second largest and worst-ranked school district in the nation.

From grade school in Historic Filipinotown, where I learned to read and write in English, to John Muir Middle School on Vermont & 60th, where I picked up my street smarts, to George Washington Preparatory High School on 108th & Normandie, where I became the reluctant optimist I am today. I even did a few years at East Los Angeles College while I lived in East LA for a decade, surviving on $20 a month and random street tacos as I completed the business administration program, though I never officially graduated.

When asked why I'm a wedding photographer I say, "Honestly, I don't know. It pays the rent, I guess." But back on March 11, 2003, at the Crenshaw Mall, after picking up a copy of Sing the Sorrow, while skimming through magazines at Waldenbooks, I read a Men's Health article ranking photographer as the sexiest job for men. It was all the convincing I needed. I was in 10th grade. Not long after, I started documenting my friends and high school shenanigans on Kodak disposable cameras. Months later, my dad got me a Kodak EasyShare DX6340 from the Best Buy on Pico & Sawtelle, to photograph the local ska and punk scene.

In late 2004, I asked my mom for a Nikon film camera. Why a Nikon specifically? Because when I was in 5th grade in 1997, I saw the Nikon F5 in The Lost World: Jurassic Park at the cinema on Pacific & Gage in Huntington Park. Fast forward to 2005, 12th grade, my mom got me the Nikon N75 from Ritz Camera in the Fox Hills Mall. Coincidentally, I ended up working at Ritz Camera in the Beverly Center not long after, where I learned to print and color-correct 35mm film on Fuji Frontier optical printers and scanners. And with that dead-end salary, I was able to get my dream camera, the one I saw on the big screen all those years ago: the Nikon F5. The same F5 I still use today.

And while Sarah Harding from The Lost World inspired the camera I should own, the Nikon F5, with Men's Health later giving me that random cosmic push to be a photographer, the person who cemented the idea of becoming a professional (wedding and fashion) photographer as a career — even down to the camera bag I use today, Domke — was, of all people, Matty from 13 Going on 30. Which I saw in 2004 on a bootleg DVD my dad bought on the street.

The philosophy — or the WHY — behind The Drunk Wedding Photographer — the street tacos, Mezcal culture, and even the anti-consumerism stance — was shaped during the decade I spent in East Los Angeles, living a block away from the Maravilla King Taco while studying business management and marketing at East Los Angeles College. During that time, I was a fashion photographer in Downtown L.A. and photographed weddings on the side.

And as an Oaxaca native who grew up between MacArthur Park, South Central, and East L.A., the foundation for the brand was already there: taking wedding pictures on Kodak film with my Nikon F5, and appreciating the micro-cultures that make Los Angeles what it is. The ideas existed long before the brand name did. But because my previous brand was positioned as a more traditional luxury wedding brand, I never found a way to bring those influences together into a single identity.

That changed in early 2022 when I was hand-selected to assist at a wedding not because I was a film wedding photographer, but because I knew Mezcal. The client was Lee Eisenberg — one of the writers of The Office — and Emile Jane Fox, and Mezcal played a major role throughout the two-night wedding. On my way to the welcome dinner at Canter's on Fairfax, while sitting in traffic on the 170, I saw a cardboard sign hanging from an overpass that read Mexican Roofer dot com, and I thought: that's stupid genius. Nobody forgets a name like that.

Later that night, after several visits to the Mezcal bar, the bartenders seemed equally impressed and amused that I was drinking Mezcal neat like nothing. The following evening, at the wedding in the Hollywood Hills, the same bartenders shouted, "Back for more, Mr. Drunk Wedding Photographer!?" after what had to be my twentieth visit to the Mezcal bar with my Nikon F5 on hand.

And all of this couldn't have happened at a more perfect time. My previous brand had been under a .net domain — my dumb ass had let the .com expire — and I was already considering a complete rebrand when lightning struck. I remembered that cardboard sign and what the bartender had called me at Lee's wedding. That's when I knew those four simple words distilled my entire philosophy into a single brand name. And on January 1st 2023, I launched The Drunk Wedding Photographer dot com.