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For their Romantic Fashion Session (aka Trash The Dress, Day After Session, Bridal Session, etc.), Guannan said he really wanted photos that would show some of the Albertan landscape, so that their relatives overseas could get a picture of the place they have made their home. We both agreed that Banff was a must! It’s such a beautiful location, with the Rockies and lakes and forests.

We started our day with some photos of Renee getting ready in the hair salon, just like I would for a wedding. Renee had a very cool birdcage veil that looked awesome with her dress. Guannan had asked for some photos with his car, so we did those as soon as everyone was ready, because the weather looked a bit iffy and I didn’t want the car to get rained on or muddy—it was so shiny! The sky was very overcast, so I went with it and created dramatic-looking images with the dark clouds.

Since stylish imagery was a big priority for Guannan and Renee, we mainly did posed photos, so this blog post is almost like a Unique Images Photography guide to posing couples! The goals for our session, apart from getting great images, were that the photos have a stylish and somewhat romantic feel, that the time be relaxing and not rushed, and that the photos show off the Banff area.

Thanks to Guannan and Renee for being such a wonderful and hospitable couple!

Mountains! Forests! Caves! Dragons! Goats!

And the most important thing: a happy couple in love.

From my very first lengthy and chatty phone call with Ngan, in response to her enquiry email, I knew this was a wedding that I wanted to photograph. I book most of my couples without meeting up first and I’m used to getting right into the swing of things on the wedding day itself, so it’s such a good thing when you can click so well and have such a cool connection right away.

John and Ngan were married at the Juniper Hotel in Banff, which is a stylish, modern-rustic venue away from the main town. The place has an eco-friendly focus and is entirely wind-powered, which is pretty cool. Ngan and John were ably assisted in many things throughout their day by wedding planner Sonia and her assistant from Cornerstone Events. They did a fantastically amazing job and I highly recommend them.

The first event of the day was John and Ngan’s Vietnamese tea ceremony. We’ve photographed a number of Asian tea ceremonies (Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian, etc.) and they have to be some of the most challenging things we photograph. So much happens so fast! And it’s all important! Lol! If you’ve never seen one, imagine a western ceremony where the first kiss happens in the blink of an eye every few seconds for half an hour and that will give you some idea of the timing of it all. Of course, there aren’t actual kisses happening constantly in the tea ceremony; they exchange gifts and greetings and have other traditions.

At the end of their tea ceremony they had a surprise for their guests: traditional dragon dancers! That was so cool! There were eight of them and there was so much sound, colour and energy in the dancing! Then John and Ngan snuck off with us for some quick portraits in their traditional Vietnamese dress.

Their western wedding ceremony was outside on the Juniper’s terrace area and, although the weather had been threatening snow, the sun popped out just for their wedding. After that we visited a few locations around Banff for their portraits. They were so easy to take photos of. In fact, their whole wedding party was very easy-going. And John has to be one of the smiliest grooms we’ve ever seen! He basically didn’t stop smiling all day!

Their reception was full of laughs and there was a touching moment when Ngan gave a speech to her family in Vietnamese. I have no idea what she said, but there was so much emotion in the room that I nearly cried, too!

Thanks for having us at your wedding. Here are some of your photos.

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:

One of our recent Banff weddings was recently featured on the Wedding Obsession blog in their Real Weddings area. Melissa, who runs the place, has a great site that features the talents of local Albertan photographers and I’m really happy to have one of our weddings up there. You can see our entry HERE. Thanks for having us, Melissa!

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.

Hot on the heals of the Banff wedding we did for Jordan and Leanne is a Banff engagement with fun couple Samson and Donna. Kudos to them for braving the cold for the outside photos! That wind was a killer!

We started out in the Bow Falls area before heading to the Fairmont Banff Springs to shelter from the wind and also get some indoor portraits. Samson and Donna are great dancers and we were able to get the Mount Stephen Ballroom totally to ourselves. (I’ve never seen that before!) So Samson got to twirl Donna all around around whole the floor—a private moment in a normally very public place. It was pretty cool, actually.

We only had a limited time for this engagement session, so we made the best use of the nearby areas around the Mount Stephen Ballroom for the whole time we were there. Donna and Samson were a great, open couple and I really look forward to their wedding day.

Thanks to Leanne and Jordan for having us at your wedding! Jordan is actually an accomplished photographer himself and it is always an honour to be chosen to photograph the wedding of another photographer. Their wedding was in beautiful Banff and they flew up from their home in San Francisco to get married here. Aside from the ceremony itself their wedding was a bit of a break from the more typical, traditional schedule, with a reception lunch right after the ceremony and then a casual dinner in the evening. I think that this is the best of both worlds for a wedding, where you can still have all of those heartfelt moments during the ceremony and reception speeches and then later you can freely mingle with your family and friends and enjoy their company without having to sit through a set list of things to do.

Their wedding ceremony was held in the Banff Park Lodge’s Castle Room, with their reception and evening after-party at the Glacier Salon. Both rooms are very nice, with lots of polished wood in them and a decorative wall of molded glass showing a mountain landscape in the Glacier Salon.

Leanne had the biggest smile ever! She smiled so much, especially during their ceremony. Everyone else smiled too when she slipped up during her vows to her “awful wedded husband”. Poor Jordan. Lol! Jordan and Leanne had asked that I get photos of all of their guests as they entered the reception, so I set up a little area and quickly had them pose as they came through. I always get candid images of people laughing during speeches and that sort of thing as part of the day’s coverage anyway, but this makes sure that there is a professional photo of everyone who was there.

After lunch they had speeches and a slideshow, which alternatively had everyone laughing or wiping tears. Actually, I’m going to interrupt myself a bit and say how much I like weddings where the speeches are after the meal. That way all your guests are happy and relaxed and can pay full attention and you don’t end up with photos of them laughing with food in their mouths. As a matter of fact, although there was definitely a very relaxed and easy-going attitude at the wedding, I have to say that this was also one of the best-scheduled weddings I’ve been to. We never felt like we were rushed for time. From what I heard during the speeches, this was probably due to Jordan’s preternatural spreadsheeting abilities.

For our photo time we visited a few locations around Banff, capturing the gorgeous scenery of the mountains and the river. We also visited the Fairmont Banff Springs, which is an wonderfully elegant location for photography. I love it in there and it was a welcome break from the cold wind outside! After their photos we headed back to Melissa’s Missteak across from the Banff Park Lodge where the two met with their families for an intimate dinner before crossing the road to meet back up with the rest of their guests for the evening. We stayed to catch some candid photography of everyone having a great time there.

Congrats, guys! Here are a few of your images.

(P.S. Thanks to photographer Trent Ernst for assisting me again).

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 Michelle and Farid, who were married in beautiful Banff last weekend! They were such a great couple to hang out with.    Even our pre-wedding meeting when Michelle and her sister Angela came down to check us out before booking was a blast and I had been looking forward to the wedding since then.

Their wedding ceremony was at the Rundlestone Lodge in Banff and it was a blend of Persian and Canadian traditions, mixing Michelle’s heritage with Farid’s.  The Persian traditions include rubbing a cone of sugar over the heads of the bride and groom to “sweeten” their marriage, which was not nearly as messy as I thought it would be.  Farid’s family had also made some traditional sweets, which we got to sample.    One of the dishes was baklava, which I thought was interesting, because I only knew it as a Greek delicacy.  It’s funny to see different countries share foods and traditions that you think are specific to just one place.

Michelle and I share a similar warped sense of humour and we had been making each other laugh with various quotes from Flight of the Conchords, so there were a few photos I took that captured Michelle’s and Farid’s off-beat humour.  They’d also brought some books from the turn of the previous century, titled Successful Marriage and Sexual Knowledge, to be used in some of the photos.  You should see Farid’s expressions in these images—priceless! 

Michelle also asked for photos in the Banff cemetery.  She explained that sometimes she thinks of the people in cemeteries and wonders about their lives and who is thinking of them now and so she visits to sort of almost reassure those who have passed that someone here is thinking of them. When Michelle told me this I immediately had an idea for an image—something positive, yet with a moody atmosphere to it.  I thought I’d start with one of the images from that session and when I update this blog entry later, after editing more images, I’ll come back with a few others from the other times of their wedding day, including Michelle’s cute pink boots, the handmade Persian tapestry that Farid’s parents had at their wedding, and more.