A Little About Us: Esme + Shane

I spend so much of my life asking my couples how they met, what they love doing together, where they like to eat, where they’ve traveled, and all the little things that make their relationship theirs. So I thought it would be fun to turn the camera around for once and share a little bit about me and my partner, Shane.

How We Met

Shane and I met in September 2022 through a mutual friend. My friends were meeting at my place before going out for the night in San Francisco, and our mutual friend brought Shane over.

The funny part is that we both went to Berkeley High, but we didn’t know each other there.

Shane got my number from our friend and texted me the next morning. I ignored him. 😂 Six weeks later, he tried again and asked me on a proper date. Our first date was October 2022.

A Little About Us

I’m Esme Franco, a wedding photographer, and Shane Young is an attorney in San Francisco.

A lot of our time together revolves around food, traveling, wandering around the city, hanging out with friends, and finding somewhere to sit for coffee or drinks.

We Love to Travel

Travel has been a big part of our relationship.

A few places we’ve gone together:

• Mexico City — twice
• Puerto Escondido
• Cabo
• Cancún
• Paris
• Amsterdam
• Budapest
• Mallorca
• Morocco
• New York

I feel like we work really well together when it comes to planning trips. Usually I’ll start a shared Notes app because that’s my favorite way to organize everything, and I’ll divide it up day by day. I’ll start making a list of places I find while I’m researching, usually from TikTok, and I also love making a Google Maps list for wherever we’re going.

Shane usually handles more of the logistics, like flights, hotels, and getting us where we need to be, and I worry more about finding the cute places, good dinner spots, things for us to check out, and making sure our outfits are good. Shane is basically my little doll and, for the most part, I get to style him. He’ll give me some resistance here and there 😉 But he loves it.

Some of Our San Francisco Favorites

We’ve spent a lot of our time together in San Francisco, so naturally we’ve collected a few favorite spots over the years.

Favorite brunch: Le Marais Bakery

Favorite sushi: Robin

Favorite coffee: Linea Caffe

Favorite neighborhood to wander around: The Mission

Favorite low-key day: Grab coffee or sandwiches and hang out at Dolores Park.

Favorite recent restaurant: Frances

Favorite Mediterranean spot: SF Grill — we love the chicken shawarma plate.

Favorite dumpling spot: Dumpling Story on Valencia — I’m basically addicted to their green beans.

Favorite cocktail bar: The Beehive

A little sentimental one: Beauty Bar — it was the first bar we went to on our first date.

There are definitely a few places in the Mission where we somehow always end up.

I spend so much time documenting everyone else’s stories that it felt fun to finally put a little piece of ours here too.