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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!

Dan and Cait and I got together the day after their wedding for this romantic fashion session—or ‘trash the dress’, as it is popularly known, though I much prefer my name for it. Plus, Caitlin would have been understandably reluctant to actually trash her rather nice Lazaro wedding gown. It was good to see them again and we were able to relax and create some portraits without the rush of the wedding day.

We shot mostly around the Liberty Grand again, using some locations that we weren’t able to get to on their wedding day due to weather and a tight wedding schedule. Right near the Liberty is a really cool historic house with a beautiful garden. I love the first few images from there—with the dappled sunlight streaming through the tree branches it just looks so summer-y and secluded, like we were on a farm somewhere. And check out the last photo of Dan with the Toronto skyline—it looks like a Batman poster!

There will be more.  Stay tuned. 

We photographed Kristy’s wedding back in 2006 and off and on since then Kristy and I had talked about doing a trash the dress type of session. We finally got a chance to put some of our ideas into action!  I had wanted to do a “bride on a snowboard” image for about a year now and when Kristy said that she owned one and asked if she should bring it with her I leapt at the chance.  The temperature was around zero celsius and Kristy kept warm with a winter jacket and a thermos of coffee in between shots.  She was really brave though, because I was pretty chilly even with a jacket on!  We spent a little while outside and then headed to the Lethbridge Lodge where Kristy changed out of her wedding dress and the shoot morphed into a regular portrait session.

Sharon Ulrich from the Sun Times had just interviewed me about trash the dress sessions and you can read her excellent article by clicking here.

And here are some images from our session: