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This was such a wonderful wedding, with a really nice couple—and it was in Banff! I love Banff. Actually, the weather forecast had been predicting rain all week, but thankfully, when the wedding day dawned there was beautiful blue sky, with just a few clouds.

The wedding schedule was based at the Rimrock Resort, which is a really incredible place. It is quite large and absolutely filled with beautiful and elegant areas. Plus, it has the best view of any hotel in Banff that I have been to. Chantelle got ready there, while Brandon and the groomsmen got ready at the Fox Hotel. So, I left Sherri and Jessica with the guys and met Chantelle at the Rimrock.

By the way, the cloth over Chantelle’s shoulder that you can see in some of the images is a tartan representing her Scottish heritage. I thought that was very cool. We have a Scottish groom later this year who is wearing a kilt, but it’s not often that you see a bride wearing the tartan.

Their wedding ceremony was held outside—yay for the sun!—at the Rimrock Resort’s Pool Patio. Check out the big smiles as they see each other for the first time that day!

After the ceremony—ok, I have to admit being totally in the dark about the mustache thing!—I was following the bride and groom and all of a sudden the girls break out these fake ‘staches. It was a funny moment.

When it came time to do the portraits I thought about taking them to the Fairmont Banff Springs, but everyone goes there, so instead we chose a location that I have not yet seen anyone else use before. Banff is such a beautiful area with a great range of gorgeous locations available.

After the portrait time we headed back to the Rimrock Resort for their reception in the Wildrose Ballroom. Chantelle and Brandon had a private look at the room before everyone else was allowed in and the decor looked fantastic, thanks to wedding planner Lisa Hanslip from The Wedding Planner, in Calgary.

We finished our evening there with some more portraits in and around the resort. Brandon was particularly keen to get a few shots with Chantelle’s dad’s cool, blue 1969 Dodge Coronet R/T.

I’ve gone way overboard with the number of images I’m posting on the blog for this wedding! Normally I only post about half this many and most of them are from the portraits I take, but I thought that I’d include more candids and details in today’s blog post. We capture more of those photos during a wedding day than anything else, and our clients always have many, many candid photos in their private galleries, so today I wanted to show a few more of those images.

All the best, guys! Enjoy your wedding photography preview.

Congrats to Sandra and Karlo! I photographed their engagement session in Calgary back in April this year (link) and I’ve been looking forward to their wedding since then. They are one of the nicest couples you could hope to meet—really open and easy-going. You’ll be able to see that from the slideshow below, because just about every image with someone’s face in it shows them either laughing or crying, especially from the ceremony onwards.

The ceremony was outside at the Calgary Croatian Cultural Centre and the reception was inside. When we got there to set up I wondered if I had the right place, because there was only one person there! It turned out that everyone else was inside in the air-conditioning. It was a hot day! The area where the wedding was held was nice, but it was directly under the flight path from Calgary airport. Every few minutes the officiant had to pause as a plane went overhead. It was actually funny after a while. There were some red-leaved trees there and I loved how they fitted so well with Sandra’s hair colour and the colours of the flowers and dresses.

After the ceremony we took off for some relatively fast portraits at one of the parks overlooking the city. Because we were a little pressed for time during the portraits I grabbed Karlo and Sandra throughout the day to get a few posed shots whenever we could. You’ll see that in the slideshow. I actually do this at most of our weddings.

The reception was filled with love, singing, and teary speeches. Karlo and Sandra even sang a couple of songs themselves! Shortly before we had to go Karlo took me to the bar for a shot of his national drink, slivovitz. I haven’t actually had a drink in years and so I had something non-alcoholic, but it was a real honour to be treated so warmly.

So here is a slideshow of about 140 images from their wedding day. It takes a little while to load, but it’s worth it.

Here are some images from a bridal fashion session we did in Kelowna. There will be another follow-up post to this one later. You’ll see why.

Our models for the day were Dan and Caitlin—who are actually engaged to be married—Tonya, Steven, and Jesyca. They were all great to work with!

Dan is none other than “Tarzan Dan” Freeman, a radio personality from Toronto who now lives and works in Kelowna. For anyone who has listened to him and is wondering: yes, he is as crazy in real life as he is on the air. Dan, I am still bummed that I forgot to set up a shot of you being sprayed with the hose at Summerhill Winery. Caitlin was originally a last-minute addition to the shoot, but I am so glad we had her along! She was super helpful and excellent in front of the camera. Caitlin is a very skilled ballet dancer and has abundant natural grace. Oh, and I should mention on behalf of Caitlin that her actual wedding dress was not worn for these images. Dan and Caitlin had a fantastic chemistry and a great sense of fun. It was so easy to get cool photos of them.

Tonya was awesomely professional to work with! Even when I had her out in blinding sunlight on a yacht in the Okanagan Lake at noon she was striking pose after pose for me, with no complaints.

Steven was one of the most enthusiastic and patient guys I’ve ever had out on a shoot! We went way later than expected and he wasn’t in as many of the photos as the girls were, but he was so into the whole process and was great to have with us.

Jesyca was really quiet during the day, but always up for whatever I suggested, even my crazy evening shots in the Okanagan Lake. I think we got some very cool images, thanks to her.

More details and an update in a later post. I’ll stop this one now, before I hit my smiley quota.