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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.

Happy New Year!

Thanks to all our clients from 2009! I have put together a very quick little slideshow of some of my favourite wedding and bridal session images of 2009. I tried to keep it down to only three images per wedding—which was really hard!—but this is meant to be just a glimpse. More images from each wedding can be found on the blog under the weddings category. The one exception is the very last set of wedding photos, because this is a recent wedding that I haven’t even blogged yet, so I thought I’d give them a few more photos in the slideshow. I’ll be blogging the whole wedding soon.

There are three photos from Jessica and three from James Day and the rest are from me. I also need to thank Sherri, Trent, and Doug for assisting and shooting with me this year as well; their help was invaluable to me. There are a lot of portraits in this mix, because I put so much work into them that it’s hard to not choose them as my favourites. And there aren’t really any detail photos in here, either, because this is all about the people!

Click on the play arrow below to start the slideshow. Have a great 2010.

On the morning of Susanna and Greg’s wedding my wife Sherri went into labour. You can read more about that HERE.

My second photographer and I met Greg at the church as he was waiting for Susanna to arrive in an old fire truck. This was one of those weddings full of quirky personal touches, which make a wedding so memorable and fun. I really love the little old church they were married in! It’s like one of those tiny white wooden buildings you see as you drive through the prairies, sitting alone in the middle of a field. The light was so beautiful inside! It definitely had the best natural light of any wedding ceremony we have ever photographed. In fact, it is the first church we’ve been to that was actually bright inside and not dark. Ah, yes, the things that excite a wedding photographer.

Susanna and Greg had so many cool things worked into their ceremony. This is the second of three weddings we have this year with a Scottish bride or groom and Greg and his groomsmen were all done up in kilts and tartans and the other traditional Scottish garb. Not only were there personal touches to the ceremony, but their love for each other was so clear, with Greg wiping tears from his eyes and Susanna choking up as she saw Greg waiting for her. And I really liked the Scottish influences during the day. Greg even read Susanna a poem by Robert “Rabbie” Burns during the ceremony.

After their ceremony and toasts of scotch we did their photos on the same property, an historical village with a little old jail and loads of cool rustic buildings. There were tons of great spots and I could have photographed there for hours. Plus, the wedding party were fun and really easy to work with.

Their reception was back in Lethbridge and it was filled with lots of fun and laughter. They also had the most multicultural dinner I’ve ever seen, with dishes from about a dozen different countries. Their wedding reception tables were also named after different places that meant something to them and their families. Greg and Susanna also did a very nice thing for me, too. Because I was there while Sherri was in labour they sped up their reception events so that I could photograph them and leave. Although my second photographer, Jessica, was very capable of taking over in my absence and they really didn’t have to do this, they did their cake cutting, first dance, father-daughter/mother-son dances, and the bouquet and garter tosses all back to back. (In case you’re wondering I was with Sherri for the last three hours of the labour and birth. )

All the best to Susanna and Greg! Click below to start the slideshow and give it a little bit of time to load.

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.

We recently had the privilege of photographing our friend Melissa. She needed some headshots done for a local church. Like many people, the only prior experiences she’d had with photography before talking with us had been unpleasantly contrived sessions and she told me that she wanted something natural, something authentic, something that showed who she was as a person.

So we started out with the headshots, which we did in her house in front of a wonderfully colourful wall, and then moved on to a field on the outskirts of Lethbridge for photos of her playing her guitar. Melissa is a Christian and the photos at the end of the slideshow are of her worshipping God in a very natural way. This shoot was very spontaneous, as many of my shoots are, and Melissa’s photos grew out of an organic interaction between us all. After the headshots I did no posing at all. It was great to photograph someone so genuine who opened up with us like that. Photography for me is very much about connecting with people and my most meaningful and successful shoots are those where people are able to relax and be themselves. I’m a very open person myself and so I think I create an environment where people find it easy to do this.

Melissa is a very gifted multi-instrumentalist and the music in her slideshow was taken from a CD she recorded. You can find out more about her and her music HERE. Click on the play button below to see her photos.

Congrats to Heidi and Clark, a great fun couple who were married at St. Patrick’s church Lethbridge on a not-too-cold January day.  Well, not cold for us, compared to how it could have been.    The temperature for their winter wedding was a relatively-balmy minus five degrees, with the wind chill.  The week before it had been down in the minus thirties!  It’s days like this I’m glad I’m a photographer and not a bridesmaid, because those dresses can’t be very warm.  Plus, I would look scary.

Anyways, after the service we did some quick family photos and then headed off for some more fun ones with the bridal party.  Heidi really wanted some outdoor photos at the top of the coulees, but it was so windy!  One of the guys kindly volunteered to model while I set up and then when I was ready everyone rushed outside and we took a few quick photos.  After they had braved the wind we moved on to less windy locations around town, like the old firehall, the Lethbridge Lodge, and the new Henotic restaurant and bar.  We had quite a bit of time with Clark and Heidi and so were able to get a nice variety of photos of the two of them.

Their reception was at the Galt museum, which is one of my favourite reception places in Lethbridge, and they had it decorated with their winter wedding theme.  Everything was blue and white, with silver snowflakes.  Sherri and I stayed for the speeches and cake cutting but left before the dancing—which Clark assures me was a good thing. 

The slideshow, featuring a few of their wedding images is below.  Give it a little time to load; it’s a quick-but-large slideshow.  Oh, and check out the cool images we got in an old jail! 

Ah, what a wedding! What a great couple. This was definitely one of the most emotional weddings we’ve been to. I think the speeches at the reception will stay in my memory forever. Even when Jen gave her speech to Yuki’s mother in Japanese I had tears in my eyes—and I didn’t have a clue what she was saying! But it was such a powerful moment. All of the speeches were very touching and the atmosphere in the room was incredible. And, yes, that is a real samurai sword during the cutting of the first cake!

Yuki and Jen showed so much love and laughter during the day, it was awesome; this is what weddings are all about! Yuki has a great sense of humour and was constantly joking around. He was bold and irreverent and I liked him immediately. How many grooms, during their photo session, ask to pose with a vacuum cleaner? “This is what my life is like”, he sighed, pushing it over the carpet in the hotel’s hallway.

Jen is a perfect match for Yuki; they compliment each other so well. She is so incredibly sweet. There are always little things that don’t go perfectly during a wedding day and Jen dealt with them with patience and was just so nice. And she looked absolutely amazing.

Yuki and Jen both bought gifts for each other, from Tiffany’s and I-Prima. They both showed me what they’d bought and then told me not to tell. Their rings were from Tiffany’s and were simply beautiful, as you would expect.

Their wedding took place in St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church here in Lethbridge. I just love the wood in this church, and the stained glass window over the altar area has to be the largest one in Lethbridge. It’s a deep blue and compliments the wood perfectly. Erin Phillips, the minister, was very nice. We were not allowed to use flash during the service and we had to stay in one spot until the very end, rather than move around, but Erin didn’t mind me moving a couple of feet and we were still able to record the ceremony without trouble.

During the reception we walked through the University to get some more portrait images and there was a basketball game going on, so Jen and Yuki sat and watched while I took photos of them in the stands. That’s a first for me at a wedding!

Yuki and Jen had asked that we get fun photos during the day and Yuki’s off-the-wall personality combined with mine to lead to some of the strange poses you’ll see below. It was all fun though. I think this is the first time I’ve had a groom who may be even crazier than me. Please click on the slideshow below to see an excerpt of their wedding.

We first met Corey and Chelsea last winter when we did their engagement session and I’m going to post one photo from that session below, followed by one from their wedding day. I think the contrast in the seasons between their engagement and their wedding is cool.  :) There is also a short slideshow below the two images, so make sure you take a look at that as well.

Corey and Chelsea were married at the beautiful Norland bed and breakfast here in Lethbridge. It was cloudy before the ceremony and there were a few spots of rain just before Chelsea walked down the aisle, but thankfully the weather cleared up. Corey and Chelsea and their wedding party were a really easy-going and up-for-anything group and we did a lot of random fun stuff for the photos.  Actually, from the stories at the reception, these guys really have some wild moments.  We didn’t do anything crazy for the photos, though you should see the jumping-in-the-air shot in the slideshow.  I haven’t done this shot very often, because I like to try new things as much as possible, but Chelsea requested it.  And, man, they really got into it!  This is what a jump shot should look like.  :)

The reception was over at the Italian-Canadian club and their speeches were funny and touching, with a lot of past stories revealed.  Sometimes I laughed so much I had to make sure my shutter speed was fast enough to stop the camera shaking.  All the best to Corey and Chelsea!  Enjoy the photos.  :)

Congrats to Mark and Whitney!  They were married recently at the River of Life church here in Lethbridge.  Mark is from London and several people from his family and his friends flew out from England to be here on his wedding day, which was very cool.  Oh, and the speeches were hilarious!  It’s hard to beat the British sense of humour when it comes to reception speeches.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  The day started for us at the hair salon with Whitney and her bridesmaids—and her eight flower girls!  Yes, eight!  I’ve never seen so many at a wedding.  They were all very cute.  :)

Their wedding ceremony was quiet and authentic, starting with worship music—that bit wasn’t quiet!—and including our first ever foot-washing ceremony.  Well, not ours, per se; Mark demonstrated his love of Whitney and willingness to serve her needs by washing her feet.  It was, like the rest of the service, a sincere and open showing of their love.

The reception at the Galt museum was amazing!  The tables were decorated with large ice sculptures and the cake was incredible.  It was a very elegant occasion for sure.  And, of course, there is the great view through the huge windows all around the room.  Check out the images toward the end of the slideshow below to see what I mean.  The speeches were both heart-felt and funny.  We have so many photos of people laughing at the speeches toasting the groom, poor Mark.  Whitney’s dad—also named Mark—and Mark the groom gave two touching speeches at the end.  It was an honour to shoot their wedding and we wish Mark and Whitney the best in their marriage. You can see a short slideshow of their wedding below.

Congratulations to Panos and Donell! They were married here in Lethbridge at the Ukrainian Orthodox church and Sherri and I were honoured to be their photographers for the day.

Panos, whose name is apparently pronounced to sound similar to Bono—though I think I kept messing it up on the day—and Donell are a great couple who were so easy to work with. They were relaxed and fun and generous. We started out at Reflections hair salon near the old fire hall, which is currently my favourite hair salon to take photos in. It has big windows that let in lots of bright sunlight, which is more flattering than artificial lighting, and the booths where you get your hair done are fairly close together. You always capture more fun moments when the bride and bridesmaids can talk with each other without yelling across the room. There’s a tip if you’re taking notes.

Then I left Sherri with the girls and headed out to take photos of Panos and the groomsmen. As soon as I arrived Panos offered me something to drink and gave me a set of cufflinks. It felt more like I’d popped over for lunch than was working. I surprised the guys by choosing to take their photos in the basement—”Oh, you won’t want to take photos down there”, they said—ha! And then I headed off for more photos of the girls. Donell was going over her vows and laughing with her bridesmaids, which makes it easy to get fun shots!

I’ll say one thing about traditional Greek Orthodox ceremonies: they give you plenty of time to get a bunch of different and interesting images! I actually enjoyed it, even though it was a long ceremony. It was really hot that day, but I like the heat, too.

The reception was catered by Luigis on the north side and the food was excellent. The dessert was the best I have ever had at a wedding so far. I never usually eat sweet stuff and I ate the whole thing. The DJ was Shad, from Sound Barrier Entertainment, and he did a great job of keeping the music and lighting rolling. I gave him a bunch of photos from the wedding day and he was able to project them onto a screen right then and there. The night finished for us with everyone doing Greek dancing, which is super fun to take photos of!

I’ve posted some photos and also a short slideshow at the top. Click on the play button and give it some time to load—it’s short but big.