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Congrats to Dan and Caitlin who were recently married at Toronto’s Liberty Grand, in a day filled with laughter and tears. If you are a regular blog reader you may recognise Caitlin and Dan from a bridal fashion shoot I did last summer in Kelowna. A lot of people thought that they were models I had hired to act the part of a couple when in fact they are actually a real-life couple and were engaged at that time.

This was such a cool wedding in so many ways! The entire day was based in the Liberty Grand complex, which is a really beautiful wedding and event venue down near the waterfront in Toronto. The combination of the bright colours of the cherry blossom theme for the wedding and the Liberty’s own classic elegance gave a great look, both timelessly classy and fun as well.

Caitlin was such a stunning bride! And her Lazaro dress and ornate veil were amazing also. The guys were a lot of fun to photograph, with Dan and the groomsmen all joking around. There was also a very touching moment when Dan received a special gift and card from Caitlin.

Their ceremony was held in the dome area of the Liberty Grand, which is a very beautiful room and they augmented it with cherry blossom decorations. After the ceremony I had only a few minutes to do all of the portraits and I took most of Dan and Caitlin’s portraits in literally two minutes! But that’s ok; it doesn’t take long to capture some great moments when a couple are really in love.

The reception was in the Liberty’s Renaissance ballroom and so much care had been taken to ensure a good time for everyone—they even had chefs cooking your food as you chose it! After the speeches everyone got out onto the dance floor and I love it when people get into the dancing! Caitlin’s bridesmaids are all professional dancers—Caitlin was actually in the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympic Games—and as well as the bridesmaids there were tons of people out on the dance floor giving it everything they had. As the dancing continued, Valerie Stanois, an amazing singer from hit Broadway musicals such as We Will Rock You, sang live for Caitlin and Dan while they danced and did the bouquet and garter tosses. She was accompanied by the lead from the current Dirty Dancing musical and as a duo they totally rocked the place.

So, thanks for having me along, Dan and Cait! All the best to you both!

Click on the play button below to see a slideshow of some highlights of the wedding day.

This is just a quick post before I blog a wedding later today to say that the International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers spring contest results came in this morning and I got third overall – yay! My images placed in several categories there and the overall placing reflects a total score. The entries and standard of photography there is absolutely incredible and I feel very privileged to have placed so well. That said, I plan to pull out all the stops and completely kick butt next time!

Stephanie and Kyle are an active couple who love the outdoors and asked to have their engagement session in the Kananaskis mountains, which I was happy to do. Of course, I didn’t know when I agreed to it that I’d end up halfway up a mountain in a blizzard.

The Kananskis is a beautiful, peaceful area in the Rocky Mountains about forty minutes from Banff. During ski season there are people on the slopes, but this day we had the mountains almost totally to ourselves. Kyle and Stephanie had brought their skis and we started off with photos of them around the lift and on the hill, skiing. Then we went to a second location that Kyle had picked out. We parked our cars and talked about where he wanted to go. “There’s a ledge just up there that I think would be cool”, he said, waving his hand towards a flat, rocky area about ten metres up. “Oh, that would be no problem”, I replied. “I can even bring a load of photo gear”. So we started climbing up. It began to snow. After a minute we passed the ledge and kept going. I look at the ledge. I look at Kyle. “Yeah, there’s the ledge, up there”, he says, pointing out a speck of rocks through the pine trees, halfway up the mountain.

Kyle and Stephanie were kind enough to help me carry some of my gear, which they did with ease. As soon as we got to the ledge—which was really more of a scattering of rocks—we saw some darker clouds blowing in. I had time for about three photos before it hit us, knocking my light stand over and pelting us with snow. We retreated back down the mountain and spent the rest of the session around the river and the forest at the bottom. Stephanie and Kyle were awesome to take photos of—really easy-going and obviously in love. Here are some of my favourite photos from the day:

Now that’s a long blog title!

I got together with Lethbridge boutique bridal store Once Upon A Bride and wedding venue The Norland for a bridal fashion shoot. Some of the staff of Once Upon A Bride were involved in the shoot and they were so awesome to work with—and that’s just in helping me during the photos, so the customer service in their store must be incredible! And the Norland is always a great place to shoot at. It is the nicest outdoor venue in Lethbridge and they are always friendly there as well.

I won’t be putting the images on my wedding site in my portfolio, because although they look like getting ready photos from a wedding, they were taken in a more controlled environment, but I wanted to share some of my favourites here on my blog.

Rosie from The Photography Parlour recently picked my brain about the hows and whys I do this photography thing. The Photography Parlour is a great site with a lot of cool content and interesting articles and interviews and I’m honoured to be featured there. HERE is a link to my interview.

Last Saturday we had a whole bunch of performers and speakers come through Lethbridge for the Ignition event at the ENMAX Centre. The performances were organised by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association of Canada and as well as a line-up of great bands and illusionist Brock Gill, Will Graham was there to talk about the gospel.

First onto the stage to open the night was Eyes of Isis, the only non-christian band of the night. Then another local act, Phao took the stage. They were followed by illusionist Brock Gill and then rock band Stellar Kart. After an inspiring message by Will Graham, the headlining band, Kutless, played their set.

There was such a positive atmosphere during the night it’s awesome to see larger Christian rock acts coming through Lethbridge. Last year saw a real growth in the Lethbridge music scene, thanks to smaller venues such as Henotic, The Slice, and others, and hopefully this is also a sign of more good things to come for Lethbridge’s Christian music scene.

As well as this quick blog post I wrote an article for the Lethbridge Living Magazine blog—which will launch later this week—to compliment their printed article on Eyes Of Isis in their current magazine issue. In my article is a whole bunch of behind-the-scenes info and more photos of Eye Of Isis. When their blog goes live I’ll come back and update this post with a link to it for you to check out. Meanwhile, here are a handful of very hastily-edited images from the concerts, posted in the order of how they appeared. I have a ton of images from this event, so if any of the bands want to see more, please Contact Me. Also, a personal thanks to the film crew from Miracle Channel and to Romi from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association of Canada for being so easy to work with. There’s not a lot of room up front!

EYES OF ISIS: