Ashley & Rob have celebrated many happy New Year’s Eves together, including 2008 when they got engaged on New Years, and this year with their wedding! They gave their friends and family THE best New Year’s Eve party to be at in 2009. As wedding photographers, we spend a lot of time with couples at their wedding festivities, but we’re working so hard we don’t often get to party. We let loose on New Years with Ashley & Rob – the first wedding we’ve ever done that spanned two decades!!

Ashley got ready at her parents’ house. A shout out here to Ashley’s dad, who has the coolest fridge/freezer I’ve ever seen – and makes great ham sandwiches!

Ashley was very calm before the wedding. Doesn’t she look amazing?

Beautiful flowers from Flower Affairs.

Ashley and Rob were married at the Francis Winspear Centre for Music in downtown Edmonton, a great location for Edmonton wedding photographers to work in.  We’d like to thank Ashley with Nuance Occasions for helping to make the day run so smoothly. 

I was so touched to see Rob tear up when he saw Ashley coming in. It’s my favourite moment of every wedding.

They had a tradition I hadn’t seen at a wedding before (and we’ve been to our fair share of weddings!) – I love this one.  They wrote love letters to each other, and sealed them in a box with a bottle of their favourite wine.  On their 25th anniversary, or at an extremely trying time in their marriage, they will open the box, read the love letters, and remember why they married each other.  Isn’t that the most romantic thing ever?  We’ve been married for a few years, and I want to do that even now!

Another tradition I hadn’t seen at a wedding before that had the crowd in stitches – Rob updated his Facebook status to ‘Married’…DURING the ceremony!  That’s SO 2009!

The Winspear has so many incredible locations for photography – we needed an indoor location on New Year’s Eve because it was SO cold outside!

We did pop out to City Hall for a quick outdoor shoot.  And I mean QUICK!

The reception was at the Woodvale Facility at the Mill Woods Golf Course.  The food was amazing, the venue was simply beautiful.

Michael’s sister Alaina was one of the bridesmaids for this wedding, and her husband Brock was a groomsman; we’ve known Ashley & Rob for several years.  So we stayed until midnight to ring in the 2010 with them and party!!

Happy New Year!

Special thanks to Eternity Limousines for making sure everyone got home safe!

I saved this one for last – before the reception we had a few moments with Ashley & Rob to create something that they envisioned: I love the result, and I’m so happy that we worked together to make the day perfect.  As you look at this intimate moment, keep in mind that it was -27 C outside…

So, yes, we have the best job in the world.  I will say that a lot of people out there have a perception that all photographers do is take pictures, and I can assure you that an unbelievable amount of work goes into what we do beyond just snapping the shutter.  But I’m not going to deny that our job has some amazing perks.

So here’s the story.  Meet Dina & Amita.  Dina found us on the internet (thank you Google!) and sent our website to her friend Amita, who was planning a Hindu wedding on a cruise ship.  (So cool!)  Amita, her fiance Abheeshek, Michael, and I all had a long phone conversation getting to know each other, talking about the possibility of them flying us down for the cruise, and figuring out logistics.  So, first and foremost we have to thank Dina for finding us!  Here’s the REALLY cool thing – Dina is from Tennessee , Amita lives in Mississippi, and Abhee lives in Florida!

Fast forward nearly a year of mounting anticipation and this was our view as we descended into Tampa – yay!

From the moment we started to meet family members in the hotel and cruise to the moment we departed the ship we felt so welcome by the entire group.  We had a great chance to party it up with Amita, Abheeshek, and their friends, and spent a wonderful time on the Mexican island of Cozumel.  I hope you enjoy the visual journey of the cruise!

The pre-wedding events and wedding ceremony were held in a gorgeous theatre at the front of the ship.  This resulted in several people (myself included) becoming a bit seasick….but it was beautiful and therefore all worth it.

Here’s Michael hard at work.

See what I mean? The theatre was amazing!

Before the ceremony we had a few moments alone with Amita and Abheeshek on the incredible ship.  I love their colour choice – it goes so well with the ocean setting for their wedding (and goes very well with their wedding photographers too!)  And I redeemed myself from the seasickness by taking most of these shots…

So cool…I especially love the sparkles of Amita’s outfit playing with the light.

There were some great dancers on Abheeshek’s side to help start the ceremony.

Over a dozen cruise passengers not connected with the wedding sat in the upper balcony of the theatre and watched the entire ceremony.  They were absolutely fascinated.

From a photography perspective, we loved working in a theatre – the lighting was flawless. If anyone in Edmonton wants to get married anywhere with stage lighting please call us!

The day after the wedding we had a surprise for our gorgeous couple.  We had planned a mini photo shoot with them on Cozumel, Mexico.  We’d been to Cozumel before, and were a bit familiar with the island.  We met Amita & Abheeshek at Señor Frog’s, and told them we had already secured a great driver to take us to a beach out of town for the photo shoot.  Little did they know their driver was Michael!  We had rented a Jeep, scouted out a beach, and whisked them away to a stunning waterfront with a beautiful dock for a private photo shoot.

As Amita would say…”oh, dang!” These two are so good looking, check out Amita’s amazing eyes!

Now that the year has drawn to a close, I can say without question that this is my favourite ring shot of the year.  I’m really proud of this one.

We had a bit of time to ourselves after the shoot, and visited an awesome cliff-side restaurant called Coconuts where we ran into some of the wedding guests.  We had left Edmonton at -46 degrees Celsius (-51 degrees Fahrenheit for our American readers) and feet of snow to see topless Santa decorations in a Mexican bar.  Hence: coolest job in the world!  It was really strange to see Christmas decorations without snow though…

Absolute perfection.

This is the vision we were met with coming back to the ship after our stop in Cozumel.  Our Royal Caribbean ship Grandeur of the Seas is the one on the left. I’ve posted it already, but I think it deserves to be up here twice.

We finished the cruise with a crazy, fun reception.  Abheeshek, I had no idea you had such amazing Michael Jackson-esque dance moves!

Amita & Abheeshek, thank you both so much, and congratulations!  We had an amazing experience with you, and we look forward to keeping in touch over Facebook.  I hope we’ll meet again soon (Andrew really wants to meet you too!)

We spent a fun morning with the participants in the first session of Mommy Connections this past week! We are one of the sponsors of the program, and took ‘Mommy and Me’ photos for all of the participants. They’ll each receive a free 5×7 at the next session.

We’d like to thank Carol, the founder of Mommy Connections, for giving us the great opportunity to meet these amazing moms!

Mommy Connections is a great way for new moms to meet each other, educate themselves about motherhood, and learn about great opportunities available to moms. Registration for the March session is open now!

Here is a sneak peek at some of the moms.

It’s a small world: we met Brittany when we presented to the October Wedding Planners Institute of Canada class…

…and we are a HUGE fan of Ailynn and her husband Ken, who operate Whimsical Cakes!

2010 will bring big changes to Shandro Photo, one of which is a brand new studio space!  You’ll hear more about that soon. In the meantime, we used our living room as a brief studio for photos of the Washuta Family before Christmas.  Remember this maternity session?  Meet their beautiful daughter.

Thank you everyone! This year we raised 41 cans for the Edmonton Food Bank, and $41 for the Palliative Care Unit at the Grey Nuns hospital.

Our amazing friends Jen & Ronelo have pledged to match our contribution to the food bank and Haley’s Mom Linda is matching our contribution to the Palliative Care Unit so overall that’s $162 worth of help – thank you so much!

Thanks to everyone who commented, for helping to make a difference this holiday season.

We first met Ines and her husband at Carrie & Nick’s wedding - we were seated at the same table and hit it off, chatting about our children (our little Andrew, and her daughter Naia). I remarked at what an amazingly beautiful pregnant woman she was, and passed her a card for Shandro Kids.  We hand out a lot of business cards, and I’m excited to see the ones that come back to us.  We were delighted when Ines booked our Mini Steps program and can’t wait to introduce you to her little one in 2010!

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As some of you will know, our family recently suffered a great loss. My father, Brian Cleary, passed away on Remembrance Day. He was an incredible person, and a strong supporter of Shandro Photo and everything we have worked to accomplish.  Even in the midst of his illness, he was so interested in our business, and seeing our latest work, hearing about our couples, and listening to our wedding day stories.  It gave him hope to know there was so much beauty and happiness in the world, and that we are a part of it.  His passing has made all the more obvious how important family is.

We had been planning a holiday special for a while now, and with my dad’s passing we wanted to make it something meaningful.

So here it is: for all weddings booked between now and January 31st (my dad’s birthday) you will receive 5% off, and Shandro Photo will be donating 5% to the Edmonton Cross Cancer Society in honour of Brian Cleary.

Visit our Wedding Collection Page for details of our wedding collections or contact us for more information.

It is a great chance for you to work with us and also something that we can do together to help other families who need support.  If you are a previous client or just someone visiting this blog, we encourage you to donate to the Cross Cancer Society in his honour this holiday season.

I would personally like to thank everyone who has called, sent flowers, emailed, and left messages on Facebook.  It’s a really hard time in our lives, and we are so touched that so many people are around us to support us.

A pictures is indeed worth a thousand words.  This photo of me and my dad is one of my favourites. It’s just us.  I love you dad, and I’ll miss you.

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We had the pleasure of meeting the Miles family this fall for family photos. Dr. Miles runs the Smile Spot, an orthodontics clinic in south Edmonton, and wanted a photo of his boys for his office and home.  Thanks to Britt & Cody for passing our name along!

If you’re feeling a bit chilly here in Edmonton at this time of year, this post will help warm your heart. I have a much more comprehensive post of this incredible destination wedding coming in 2010 but I absolutely had to share a few tonight.

I’ll tell you all the story soon about how Amita & Abhee found us, and the amazing cruise we just returned from, but here are a few memories from Mexico.

Merry Christmas everyone! We’re taking a brief break for the holidays but will be back hard at work in 2010.

Ritu & Amit are friends of Renu & Garry’s (awesome clients from earlier this year) and we were delighted when they contacted us about maternity photos! Really soon they are going to find out if they are welcoming a little boy or a little girl. These pictures are in the nursery for when he or she arrives.

Congratulations! We can’t wait to meet your little one. It’s going to be one good looking baby!