Holly & Ben are getting married this weekend! Michael will be helping them celebrate in style. He is looking forward to working with the fabulous wedding planner Jennifer Bergman.

We’re so lucky to live in such a beautiful city with its extensive river valley.  These engagement photos are particularly special for Holly & Ben due to some recent news in their life.  Ben has accepted an excellent job in the states, and unfortunately he and Holly will have to live apart for a time.  Luckily, they will have these beautiful pictures to look at, hopefully they will make the distance a bit easier to bear.

Shantel & Desirae had a very hot and sunny day for their wedding. These girls chose the beautiful Devonian Gardens for their wedding ceremony, and we were lucky enough to have the run of the place for photos.

Their ceremony on the wedding lawn was very touching, and emotional for everyone.

Shantel & Desirae knew exactly what they wanted for photos, they had several favourite spots in the Japanese Garden.

Christy’s photo:

I noticed while we were moving between locations that Desirae’s train (which, by the way, was an awesome addition to her pantsuit) was picked up by the wind. I asked them to start running, and I love this result.

Both brides had beautiful bouquets.

They had rented this amazing limo-bus from Blue Sky Limos for both families to be transported out to the gardens.

Shantel & Desirae are both super sweet, love the outdoors, and have very happy personalities. I was delighted to find that all of their receptions tables were dedicated to various hard rock/heavy metal/punk band…not quite what I was expecting! And then…one table was Riverdance. Who knew?

This cake was delicious, made by the Art of Cake. All of those roses on top were chocolate.

Another cool thing about a same-sex wedding: four wedding rings!

Desirae gives a little nod to the table placecards…

Thank you so much Shantel & Desirae for choosing me for your wedding. I had such a fun and easy time with both of you, you were an absolute pleasure to photograph. Congratulations on your marriage!

We had an amazing opportunity recently to travel with one of our couples to San Francisco for their engagement photos. For privacy reasons we won’t be posting their faces on the blog, or sharing their wedding next year, but they were gracious enough to let us take a few ‘blog’ shots to share with all of you. They understood that we couldn’t go and shoot in San Francisco and keep it a secret! Too exciting!

They wanted a shoot that was typically San Francisco. We had been down there for vacation before Andrew was born, and remembered this beautiful beach with a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was perfect, and the weather held up enough to see the bridge.

We then took a trip to the famous ‘Painted Ladies’, Victorian style homes built between 1892 and 1896. These particular houses are a symbol of San Francisco and have appeared in countless movies and TV shows (including the opening credits of Full House).

We had such a great trip to San Francisco – for anyone in Edmonton who hasn’t been, it’s a very reasonable vacation from Edmonton with a lot of culture and history. We were only there for 3 days and managed to cram a lot of sight-seeing in. I’d like to give a shout out to Mr. Toad’s Tours especially – we had a really fun evening driving all over the city and hearing amazing stories.

We’ve been able to use our studio for more than just families, we had two professionals stop by recently for headshots.

Len Quaghebeur is the president of Students Union Ticket Pak, those awesome coupon books that local schools and sports teams sell for fundraising.

Leslie Cleary is running for Public School Board Trustee in Ward 1 – Mill Woods.  The vote is on October 18th, so make sure to check out her campaign if you live in that area.

Bhavya & Michael had a marathon wedding day, and by 12:30 am we were still partying. There is so much to share from their pre-wedding events, but we’re going to go straight to the main event: the wedding day.

These two images make me think of old Hollywood glam.

First was the Sikh ceremony – Michael tries to sneak a peek of Bhavya walking down the aisle.

After the ceremony we shot at the Edmonton Research Park (our first time there!).

It took a bit of preparation for this shot – I was herding the geese with the video guy, Michael really got into it and charged at them with his sword.

Later in the day the couple was married again in a Hindu ceremony. Prior to the ceremony, Michael & Bhavya were separated by a cloth. Even though they had already been married earlier and spent the day together, the moment that cloth was lowered, you could see a special look between them, as if they were seeing each other for the first time that day.

Here’s a special ‘Where’s Michael’ shot for all of our Facebook fans (I promise to update that section in the fall!)

We had a few minutes for some dusk portraits of Michael & Bhavya, which quickly devolved into Michael skipping rocks with his brother. This should give you some insight into why the wedding day was so long….

We created a custom guest book for Michael & Bhavya with images from their engagement session in Peyto Lake.

Check out this amazing cupcake spread by Karen’s Cake In  A Cup – they were delicious!

We’ve seen this dance troupe at weddings before – they were fantastic as always. Michael showed a few of the photos to the boys afterwards and they were so excited!

And no Indian wedding is complete without a crazy dance party. Michael had some awesome moves!

As usual, my Michael attracted a lot of attention – this time not with dance skills but with softbox skills…

Congratulations Bhavya & Michael! We had a blast at your wedding.

We are lucky enough to have some great former clients who love to talk about us and bring us new clients. Thanks to Renu for recommending us to her cousin Hardeep for his engagement party. It was awesome to recognize so many guests from different events that we have photographed.

The party was held at the Meridian banquet hall, and the couple chose a few awesome decor touches such as the beautiful white couch for the two of them to sit on during the ceremony.

It’s really beautiful for family and friends to be present and watch the ‘official’ engagement.

Nina & Hardeep will be getting married in Toronto next year, and we hope they have an amazing wedding!

So, obviously the recent post we put up of Nitu and Jessie in wedding clothes was from the winter time. Friends and family will know that they just recently married, so here’s the real story.

Nitu had this amazing idea to do two engagement sessions with two completely different feels. Nitu of course has friends outside her own community, and has seen friends married in ‘the big white dress’. Although she loved her big Indian wedding, she wanted to be able to wear the white dress for at least a moment. So she found a beautiful dress, Jessie rented a tux, and they did a bridal session as their engagement session. And what could be more fitting for a Canadian-Indian princess than a winter session!

So here is part two of her idea. Jessie’s family is a farming family in Indian, and his uncle here in Edmonton also owns a farm. To be true to Jessie’s roots, and as a nod to Bollywood, Nitu & Jessie took us out to his uncle’s farm for a super fun shoot. Their actual wedding post is on the way shortly!

The plot: Jessie is trying to win Nitu’s affections, and convince her to marry him. Nitu takes a bit of convincing and romance before she agrees.

Jessie: “Look at my beautiful tractor, Nitu!”

Nitu: “Not interested…”

Nitu: “Well, OK, I guess it is pretty awesome.”

Some romance in the field.

And a happy Bollywood ending.

Michael almost didn’t shoot LeAnne & Brody’s wedding. Here’s what happened.

Michael did engagement photos for LeAnne and Brody last year. At the time, they hadn’t really started to plan the wedding, but wanted some beautiful photos to share their news with the world. When it came time to plan, a family friend graciously offered to do their wedding photos for them. It was a friend who is a great photographer, but not a professional wedding photographer by trade. After reading an article that I wrote about the benefits of hiring a professional wedding photographer, LeAnne called, hoping that we still had her date available. She said that her photos are so important to her, and because Michael had done such a great job on the engagement photos, she knew the wedding photos would be fantastic. Luckily Michael was still available, and the result is the beautiful post I’m sharing with you today. It’s not only the images that he was able to capture, but also the gorgeous professional album that LeAnne and Brody will enjoy that they will have from their experience with a professional photographer.

So let’s get to some pictures, shall we?

These little angel pins are a cute touch to the bouquets. I love that we get to see details from the wedding that others may not notice during the day.

It’s always exciting for me to go through the images that Michael captures from weddings that he does without me – I wasn’t part of the day, but I can feel every moment as I scroll through the photos. I love this one.

Um yeah, that’s a Ferrari.

A sweet moment with Brody and his mom caught by our second shooter Christy who took pictures of the groom’s side getting ready.

A great candid of LeAnne arriving to the ceremony at Bethel Lutheran Church.

LeAnne’s dad was very emotional walking her down the aisle. I burst into tears when I saw these images, thinking of my own dad and how proud he was to be at my wedding, and how lucky I was to have him walk me down the aisle. That, and the pregnancy hormones probably don’t help (for those of you who don’t know – our second little one is on the way in January! That little tidbit is a reward for those of you who thoroughly read my long stories…)

I don’t usually choose bridal party photos to post on the blog, but I had to share this one. So beautiful!

And, of course, fun times with the guys.

LeAnne & Brody. So happy to be Mr. & Mrs.

The ceremony at the Westin was filled of crazy kissing games, and wild dancing.

LeAnne & Brody, thank you for choosing us for your journey, congratulations!

Robyn & Dan are getting married this weekend in Jasper! Robyn was the winner of our prize in the 25th anniversary issue of Wedding Bells and won an engagement session and guest book from us. Michael met up with them in the river valley.

First, can I just say WOW about Robyn’s legs? Dan is a very lucky man. These two are so cute together.

We hope you two have a fantastic wedding!

We’re catching up! Today you’re going to get two engagement sessions and maybe a wedding.  We’ll see how efficient we are before our shoot tonight.

First up, Rehana & Shameer, who just got married this past weekend.  We hung out on Whyte Ave a couple of weeks ago, and they trusted me even when I took them into a sketchy back alley.

These next two are just too cute. Shameer definitely wins.

This photo was hands down all of our favourites from the session. I think it’s made so awesome by the cameo by ‘random whyte ave dude #1′ on the left. Thanks buddy!

Their wedding will be on the blog shortly!