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Congrats to Clint and Jill, who were married in Lethbridge on a cold winter’s day. After dropping my assistant photographer Jessica off to stay with Jill and taking a few images of her having her hair done, I took off to cover the guys getting ready, arriving just as Clint got out of the shower. That’s always the time you want your wedding photographer to show up, right? (Jill, we’ll talk about those photos later). After this I drove back to where the girls were getting the final touches done to their hair and makeup. The girls were—how shall I put it?—so wonderfully self-entertaining. They laughed and joked around constantly and were definitely a blast to photograph.

Their ceremony was held at the Southminster United Church and after the ceremony and some quick family portraits we headed to a new location just outside of Lethbridge itself for the rest of the photography. We stayed here for all of the portraits and I cycled through different people and arrangements so that everyone could take turns warming up in the limo between photos. It was cold! I can’t believe how well Jill did, seeing as she was so lightly dressed—wedding dresses aren’t really made for Canadian winters—and how long we were outside for. Apart from myself, she was outside the longest. And I was wearing a winter jacket and two pairs of socks! Well, and other stuff, too, but I don’t really want to list absolutely everything. Anyway, we had a lot of fun with the portraits, getting some cool fashion-style images as well as fun ones of people messing around and the wedding party roasting marshmallows.

The wedding reception was held at the Grandstand and it was decorated in a tasteful winter theme. We stayed until just after the first dance, also covering the speeches and cake cutting before we had to leave. By the way, Clint, I have heard that the last person the bride cuts the cake with is destined to be their soulmate forever.

I had a hard time narrowing down all our images to a few faves for the blog, but here are the ones I chose.

Congrats to Fritz and Winnie, who were married right before Christmas last year on a cold winter day, on a frozen lake in front of a castle made of ice. Not everyone can say they’ve done that.

We started the day in Canmore, where both Fritz and Winnie were getting ready. Unlike western wedding traditions, where the groom doesn’t have to worry about much more than getting dressed and showing up on time, Chinese weddings have some really fun little challenges for the groom to overcome before he can even see his bride-to-be. In this case, it meant that Fritz had to do pushups while singing something from his laptop and then he read some prank vows written by Winnie’s brother—stuff like sticking with her if she went bald and her teeth all fell out—through the door to Winnie to convince her to come out. The whole thing was a lot of fun, with Winnie’s family there making sure he did it all properly and chuckling at him as he went through with it all.

Once Fritz had completed the pranks and challenges there were Chinese tea ceremonies with each of their parents. I love how the tea ceremonies involve their parents, with everyone else gathered around as well. There is a strong family atmosphere to the whole thing.

After the Chinese tea ceremonies we drove up to Lake Louise for the western wedding ceremony, which was held on the frozen lake behind the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. It’s a gorgeous location, the hotel—which looks more like a castle—and the lake are ringed by mountains and forest and the lake has a castle built of ice sitting right on it. It was truly a winter wedding, with steady snow and temperatures down to around -20℃ with the wind chill. And the ladies wore skirts and dresses! I don’t know how they did it without freezing! I had about a billion layers of clothing and Winnie and Fritz didn’t even have winter coats on. Love kept them warm.

We did all of their photos around the Fairmont. Fritz and Winnie were fantastic and happy to brave the cold for some outside photos, but it was too cold to stay out for long and so we ended up doing quite a lot of the portrait photography inside the hotel. Fortunately, the Chateau Lake Louise is an amazing location for photography!

Congrats again, Fritz and Winnie. All the best.

This year we were fortunate enough to be able to have some of my family from Australia come to visit us here in Lethbridge. Actually, they came right before Christmas, but close enough that we celebrated together while they were here. Last year my mum and dad came over at the end of autumn. This year my mum, sister, and my sister’s kids visited us. Lucky them, they came right at the beginning of the cold snap we had where the temperatures plunged to down to -50℃, with the wind chill. Considering that when they flew out from Australia the temperature there was around 28℃ that’s a bit of a difference! So we stayed inside a lot. It was simply too cold to spend more than a couple of minutes outside at a time, so most of the photos I took were fairly candid ones inside with natural light, though I won’t post those, because mostly they’re just people eating and playing games and stuff. And they’re fun images, but they’re more personal-type stuff for our own memories. I did get a few quick posed images inside though, just to have them. On the warmest day, when it got up to around -24℃ we took the kids tobogganing for a couple of hours at the Sugar Bowl. I’ll put a few of those images up.

So, happy Christmas to everyone! And, starting with just one image from when my parents came last year, here are a handful of personal snapshots from this year.

Sora and Jonathan, a super-stylish couple from Calgary, recently invited us up to photograph their engagement session.  They brought along their two dogs to the session as well; Ollie, who is a cute little black ball, and Mook, who is a big and friendly German Shepard cross, but really wasn’t in the mood for getting his photo taken.    There was still a little bit of winter snow on the ground and it was a tad chilly, though thankfully not as cold as it could have been at this time of the year.

We started out at Princess Island Park just north of the Bow river in Calgary at the top of a steep set of steps that Jonathan ran up while Sherri and I followed at a more, umm, leisurely pace.    After doing some photos with their dogs, we headed off to Stephen Avenue where there are some lovely old stone buildings and cool bistros and pubs.  We took a more hands-off approach to this session than we often do and, although we did a few posed images, we also stood back a lot and captured candid photos of the two of them enjoying each others’ company at the James Joyce pub.  Jonathan and Sora had a Guinness each and joked around, Sora putting froth from her drink on Jonathan’s nose, and both of them pulling faces at each other. 

Sora and Jonathan, thanks for braving the cold and coming out for your engagement session with us.  We will see you at your wedding! 

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.