Rob and Lauren Blog

So it’s the first post of our insanely cool new blog! Isn’t this thing amazing? Make sure to check out the comment system, it’s so fun to watch it slide up and down. I can’t get enough of it.

Anyway, the best thing about this blog is that it’s only just the beginning. There are SO MANY new things in store, things to make it more fun, more interactive and overall more awesome. We can’t wait to grow with this blog, and have fun with all of our great blog readers! I’ll fill you in more about how we got this crazy cool blog soon, but just know that there is a revolution in photography blogging coming, and you can all get a piece of the fun! So don’t go and get a new blog from anyone else, because trust me, you will want one of these!

So, I thought a great way to start off this blog would be to post some photos of two ridiculously good looking people……..us!

Our friend James Day came from Australia to visit Canada. He was hanging out in Calgary and we invited him to come hang out with us for a few days. We had so much fun with this guy, and learned a ton! It’s fantastic to hang out with other photographers, see how they work, and just generally have fun with our job.

One really interesting experience we had was when James did a photo session with us. It was so strange to be on the other side of the camera, and we both gained a ton of great insight into what our clients experience. It was also nice to not have to think so much, and just stand and look pretty!!!!

Here are the very awesome results.

Another HUGE thanks to James for doing this for us. One day we will certainly return the favour :)

Make sure to come back every day for the next while because I have so many posts to share with you guys! Up next, our 5 part post from MEXICO!

Lauren :)

P.S. Make sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!!!!

P.P.S. If you’re scrolling through this site and you’ve reached the end then you can continue your rob and lauren adventure at our old blog

Here we go. We’re getting into our wedding season in Edmonton. There’s a lot to catch up on, but as you can see we’ve been blogging EVERY SINGLE DAY so there’s tons of fun coming your way really soon.

Way back in the day we met up with Angeline and Dean at the University of Alberta to take some wicked fun engagement photos.

Ok, so Angeline works for Starbucks doing awesome stuff. That means that both of these guys are totally addicted to the ‘Bucks. Dean pretty much couldn’t put his down! But it worked out well for us. Rob learned of a new type of drink that he really likes. It’s a Double Tall, SFV, NF, ICED, Latte. That’s how Angeline wrote it down for us, haha! More shorthand than weddings!

Anyway, we had to incorporate the coffee into a shot.

I’m gonna throw two names at you, and just wait for your head to explode. Helen Hunt and Richard Gere. BAM!

Such cool stuff going on at the U of A.

These guys were such naturals, it was a blast.

We LOVE finding little pockets of colour to shoot our sessions with. This spot was killer.

Yummy blue.

Oh, and why not throw some huge ass coloured dots into the mix! All sorts of fun!

Yeah. That’s awesome.

I LOVE how snuggly they are here.

Angeline is such a goof.

They brought it like there was no tomorrow.

On the menu for tomorrow, their super fun wedding!!! See you then!

Lauren :)

I’m not much for words today (actually I found out I lost my voice overnight, I’m still recovering from a silly cold!) so I thought today we’d get straight to the photos. Gerryl and Juan were the lucky winners of our free wedding contest and what follows is there awesome engagement session.

How cool are Gerryl and Juan? Cool enough to get us a box of Mike and Ikes!

I’m sure Lauren would like me to point out that I ate the majority of those Mike and Ikes (I think she had like four!). I do share, I just really love candy!

Have a great Monday everyone!

Cheers,
 Rob

So one thing that we get a lot of comments on are how do we find all the cool spots we shoot in???? Edmonton isn’t exactly the most extraordinary city in terms of places to shoot (that’s the reason EVERYONE goes to the Legislature on Saturdays…). But we still manage to find some neat little places that you’d never notice.

Well, we don’t walk. That would take forever! And driving prevents you from really seeing anything because you move too fast.

WHAT TO DO????

Well, we found our perfect solution. It’s called a bicycle!!! Yes, a bicycle.

But what’s even better than just a bike, is a FOLDING bike. We have a pretty small car, and there’s no way we could fit two normal sized bicycles into our ride. So a folding bike is pretty much the perfect thing.

You might wonder what on earth a folding bike looks like, and how it works. Well, we’ve put together a super awesome video to show you!

We shot that with our Canon 5D (the same camera we use at weddings). I love it!

Here are a few cool shots of the bikes!

They are Dahon Speed bikes, and they are gorgeous!

Always wear your helmets!!

A fun thing about exploring the city is that we can find new places to eat! We found this amazing little Mexican fast/fresh food place with the best burritos ever!!! It’s called Mucho Burrito. Yum!

They were big, too :)

P.S. If you are looking for a folding bike in Edmonton (or any bike for that matter) you HAVE to go to Revolution Cycle. The are THE BEST. They totally took care of us, answered all our questions, helped us out a ton, and were all around awesome. I love them.

Lauren :)

The alarm clock rang at 5:45AM today. That’s DISGUSTING! We don’t usually get up before 10:00, so you can imagine how we’re feeling right now :P But we’re off to an awesome wedding, so I know things will pick up :)

For now, I’m just gonna hit you with one really awesome photo, taken by an awesome photographer, of two awesome people.

More of these tomorrow!

Lauren :)

Welcome to a lovely Sunday everyone! We’re feeling a little sore after yesterdays wedding, which went a grand total of 15 hours! But it was a ton of fun, and we can’t wait to share some of the photos with you!

Today we’re going to show you a little something different. We’ve never had a chance to do much band photography, and so when one of our grooms (Skye, of the recent Kaelyn & Skye E-Session post) told us he was in a band, and had a show coming up, we immediately said we’d be there!

It was awesome timing that the show was the first day that our photographer friend, James Day, got here. We all packed up a bit of gear and headed off to the show. Now, since we’re all wedding photographers and used to having to be on time, we were there right on time. Which apparently is WAY too early for such an event. So we had about an hour to kill on Whyte Ave, so decided to go for a stroll. And what do you think happens when photographers go for a stroll?

Photos!

Here we are showing off our best posing skills.

And the ever so awesome, Mr. James Day!

We had to show him the wonderful and delicious Marble Slab Ice-Creamery. He got this really cool shot of them mixing in the goodies to the ice cream! I think James got chocolate with gummy worms and sprinkles and oreos…Something insanely sugary, whatever it was!

Then he took us around Whyte Ave for an impromptu photo shoot. I think these photos perfectly capture us: two goofy and silly people! Huge thanks again James!!!

We can do tricks!

I LOVE this one! Rob’s face is what makes it ;)

And then finally it was time to see the show! Skye plays in a band called Triple Exposure. I’m going to tell you right now: they are AWESOME. It’s Skye on guitar and his friend Mike on drums, and they bring so much energy to the show that it’s contagious. Rob was all ready to see them again as soon as we walked out!

For the record, James Day took a bunch of photos with us that night. Though we can’t remember all the ones he took, I know he took this amazing one. Skye’s hair is just way too cool.

He also took these really crazy shutter lag ones.

Skye’s guitar looks like it’s on fire in this one. Nothing is more awesome than that. Good job, James!

And then a bunch more of Skye and Mike just jamming out!

Hope you guys enjoyed that little something different! Up tomorrow we have a really awesome engagement session to show you!

Cheers,
Lauren :)

I told you this e-session was going to be awesome. And just you wait. This thing is “off the chain” as they say.

The coolest thing is that Jon is actually half of the brilliant team who made this very blog!!! So this post is really cool, that he gets to be featured on the blog he worked so hard on!! Good work Jon!

Another amazingly cool thing is that both Jon and Sarah have black belts in Tae Kwon Do! As soon as we hear stuff like that we get so excited with all the crazy stuff we can do!!! So believe me, you’re going to see a lot of jumping here :)

We did their shoot at the ever-awesome University of Alberta. Sure we go there a lot, but it’s always different and new locations, which is so fun!

I just saw this cool wall and suggested they climb it. There was NO hesitation, and up they went! You might remember this behind the scenes shot. This was came out of it! Cool!

Definitely flammable….

Then it was up to the rooftop to get some really cool stuff!

This shot is up on our wall. I love it! So fun!

Just showing their crazy skillz on the roof, nothing unusual.

What a great little scene!

Wow. Just wow. Look at that dramatic kiss!

Haha, and then back to the silliness!

And of course, some snuggling.

Blam!

I absolutely cannot wait for the wedding of these two. We’ve been really lucky to get to hang out with them both in working on the blog, and just for fun, and we are going to have a blast spending their wedding day with them! I mean, when the bride and groom can do crazy jumps like that, you know it’s going to be an awesome day!

Hope you enjoyed these ones!

Lauren :)

Wow, more super fun e-sessions coming at you!

We hung out with Shelly and Colin downtown to take some really fun photos. We just walked around the block, looking for fun light and great colours, and just had a great time. It sure helps that these two are super hot, and know how to work the camera like pros. They may have let it slip that they were practicing by watching America’s Next Top Model, lol! But it sure shows. I totally recommend all our clients do that. It definitely helps you relax and think about your posing while shooting, plus it’s fun!

Anyway, off to see the photos!

I REALLY love this one!

We shot in the late evening and were able to get some really great light.

And as soon as we saw this awesome blue wall we just jumped right in!

Yes! I love this one too! So dynamic and sweet at the same time.

I told you these guys could pose it up.

Haha, Asian styles!

We always have fun. ALWAYS :)

LOL! Funniest behind-the-scenes EVER!

Shelly and Colin. You are awesome. I totally can’t wait for your awesome wedding, it seems so far away, but it’s going to rush up on us!!!

Lauren :)

P.S. 10 Bonus points to Talya for having the 100th comment! YAY!!!!

So the crazy duo of Rob & Lauren is currently out shooting at an awesome wedding. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to break my “blogging every day” streak! So here’s a totally rad shot of Rob on one of our folding bikes.

We were off doing a little scout of a shooting location. And, if you haven’t realized yet, we like to have fun no matter what we’re up to. So Rob was showing off his tricks.

For the record, Rob wants me to put up a picture of him doing a wheely, so we’ll get one of those up soon. :)

Lauren :)

Ok, so how’s this for awesome timing? I’m posting Jolene & Brian’s e-session right now and in about an hour we’re leaving to go shoot their wedding!!! Cool!!

You can just picture them in all these photos in a wedding dress and tux and pretend you’re watching their wedding day…um…maybe not. But still, it’s a neat little coincidence!

We went out to play with them around Whyte Ave and got some awesome, fun and colourful photos. Here they are!

I’m pretty much a spy-tographer.

Wish us luck today! It’s going to be so fun. And the extra dosage of fun for the day: Mr. James Day is shooting with us!!! This is going to be awesome.

Lauren :)

So here it is. The long anticipated wedding of Gerryl and Juan, our winners of the Free Wedding Photography Contest we held last year. We knew this wedding was going to be awesome from the moment we met these two. I mean, after 13 years of being together, they really were excited to have their big day! Here are the photos!

Juan was all smiles getting ready.

And by now you know how much we love animals. Isn’t their little puppy the cutest thing you’ve ever seen??? All dressed up in a tux! I loved it!

They were married at the Santa Maria Gorretti Parish, which is absolutely gorgeous.

It was the first time we had seen a cord and veil ceremony, which is a part of traditional Philippine weddings. The veil symbolizes the groom’s promise to protect his bride, and the cord symbolizes unity. Very cool.

Gerryl had 5 adorable ring bearers. Cuteness overload!

Yeah. We went there.

Then time for some cool bridal party shots.

And of course, Gerryl and Juan.

We had a lot of fun photographing (and perhaps partaking in) the candy buffet!

Bling and Werther’s Originals. Yum.

And anyone who has met Juan knows he’s a man of very few words. So few, in fact, that he opted to just give his groom’s speech with these handy posters. It was hilarious, and had the whole room cracking up! Nice one, Juan!

Gerryl and Juan, it was a real pleasure to share in your big day with you. We couldn’t have helped out a better couple.

Lauren :)

Ok so these guys are awesome. Their wedding is this weekend and I am almost peeing my pants with excitement! Not only is it at one of our favorite venues (Fort Ed FTW!) but these guys are so crazy and goofy and silly that the day is going to be totally full of laughs. I can’t wait!

It sure helps that they also look ridiculously good in front of the camera! We had to reschedule their first e-session due to rain, and just as we were about to start this one it wasn’t looking promising. But the clouds totally just missed us and we had so much fun playing around.

Here is the proof:

I told you they were cool. Check out the awesome shirts!

HAhaha! Ok, so Rob has this habit of taking pictures of any animals we happen to see while we’re out shooting. Just as we finish up our session and start walking back to the cars we all see this dog just doing his business on the sidewalk. We giggle and Rob takes a photo. Afterwards I look more closely at the photo and see that the For Sale sign for the house is none other than our buddy Mike Melnychuk’s, the coolest realtor in Edmonton!!! Good work Mike!!!!

Coming up on the blog we have our very first maternity session, as well as a baby session with a little guy so cute even the boys will “Awwwww”. Promise.

Lauren :)

During our career here in Edmonton we’ve made some really good friends with other wedding photographers. Haley and Michael of Shandro Photo are two of those friends. So when they came to us and asked if we could do a maternity session with them we didn’t even hesitate to say yes!

This was actually our first maternity session and we had a ton of fun with these two. We can’t wait to meet the new baby in about a week or so! We’re so excited for you guys!

Doesn’t Haley look amazing? Wow!

I love how expectant mother’s glow. It’s totally true.

5 bonus points to the first person who correctly guesses which of us took this photo.

Michael is a super sweet hubby. He bought Haley a really posh Coach diaper bag, so it was really fun to use in some of the photos!

Hot momma!

If you’re thinking of getting maternity portraits definitely do it. It’s such a fantastic part of your life, and a great time to get some really fun photos of you two!

Lauren :)

P.S. Yesterday marked one month of blogging every single day! I never thought I’d actually be able to do it, but I’ve had a ton of fun sharing all these great photo sessions with you guys. I can’t believe how many shoots we’ve done this summer!!!! I’m slowly getting closer and closer to being caught up, one day it will happen :) But thanks everyone for following us for this month, we’ve really appreciated all your great comments and feedback!

Ok so this images are really going to tease you. This week we went out on a rare night off and hung out with our friend Talya. She’s moving to Australia in a few days to pursue her passion as a hip hop dancer. I can’t wait to show you more of what we shot that evening, but to be honest I haven’t even had time to look at them all yet! Just wanted to post a quick couple before she leaves so she can take a peeky-peek.

We had so much fun Talya and really wish you weren’t leaving. But now we have another excuse to make our way to Australia :)

There will DEFINITELY be more of these photos on here soon! But for now enjoy these as we spend our Saturday with Leslie and Mark!

Lauren :)

What a late post! Today was definitely a recovery day after the awesomeness of last nights wedding. It was pretty much a mushroom cloud of cool. But it took a lot out of us, and we slept a lot today! Then we were off for another fun session this evening.

So yeah, to keep up my streak of posting every day I’m throwing a couple more of Talya at you. Enjoy!

Ridiculously good lookin’ baby photos coming at you tomorrow!

Lauren :)

So yesterday we headed off on a quick little adventure. It involved some driving, some bike riding, some shooting, and nearly getting locked in a parking garage (thank goodness for emergency exits!).

To keep up the bonus point fun, 5 points to the first person to identify the city, and 5 points to the first person to identify the bloke in the photo (and the two people in the photo aren’t allowed to answer!)

Up on the blog tomorrow is a very fun wedding with a rockstar groom!

Until then,

Lauren :)

It’s Saturday and you know what that means! We’re at a wedding!!! But that doesn’t mean the blogging doesn’t stop!

So here is Brittany and Terrance’s wedding. These two are incredibly sweet, and we have had such a great time getting to know them. Their wedding was a day full of emotion and laughter and it was so great to be a part of it with them!

Let’s get to some images!

Have you figured out yet that I love to incorporate animals in my shots as much as I can?? Haha!

The boys on their way to the ceremony in some fancy car. I have no clue what it’s called, but it’s impressive from the way the boys talk about it.

Detail from the ceremony. One great thing about wedding photography is that we get to shoot such an incredibly diverse range of subjects, from portraits to nature!

The ceremony was held at Hastings Lake Gardens. What is so crazy is that the wedding we are currently shooting today (if you’re reading this on Saturday, August 15, when I’m posting it) is at the same location! We could be standing right in this exact spot at this moment! Amazing!

On the way back into the city we were driving right into this storm. It was dry for a while, and then suddenly it was such an incredible downpour we actually had to stop the car because we couldn’t see a foot in front of us! Crazy!

Had to make a pit stop for lunch. Where else would you go on a wedding day?

The rain wasn’t going to totally leave us alone this day and we got a bit more of a shower right before we started doing our fun portraits. Luckily we carry umbrellas in the car at all times!

But after a few minutes the rain stopped and we were out again having fun in the sun! Here the guys were enjoying sliding down in their slippery dress shoes.

Can you believe how cool the light is in this photo???

Brittany was totally fearless and up for anything on the wedding day. Our favorite kind of bride!

What a cute first dance.

Conga!

What a fun night!

Brittany and Terrance, thanks for being so great and treating us to such a wonderful wedding. We hope you love the photos!

Lauren

Saajidah and Mehdi were runners up in our Free Wedding Photography Contest that we held last year, which meant that they won a free e-session with us. Cool! So we met up to get some fun photos of these two. They turned out to be practically supermodels! Just wait till you see these shots, these two are pros!

I told you! Awesome. Thanks so much you two for hanging out with us and being so fun. And congrats on your recent wedding, woo hoo!

Lauren :)

It’s time to check out some super awesome wedding photos again! Yay!

Emina and Wisam had a bit of a different day than we’re used to, and it was so amazing to experience. Let’s get to it.

Some very cool details to start us off.

Emina’s father waiting for things to get underway.

Wisam arrives at Emina’s parents home to pick up his bride.

The men just hanging out. No matter what culture, you can always see a bunch of men just sitting around, chatting away!

Emina and her dad about to walk out to see Wisam.

The bride and groom see each other for the first time all dressed up! What an expression on his face!

It’s tradition for the bride and groom to take something from her parents house when they leave. Emina’s mother was so sweet, and knew how much her daughter liked this hanging and made sure the uncles took it for her.

Unbelievably tasty baklava.

Then, of course, some cool photos of Emina and Wisam!

It was insanely windy that day! So there are tons of hilarious photos like this of her veil trying to escape. They toughed it out though!

And finally it was time for the reception! There was tons of dancing, especially this one Arabic dance that involved holding hands and dancing in a big line.

Nothing gets you pumped up more than a drummer during dancing.

And one last shot as we were leaving, of the Sutton Place Hotel, where they had the reception!

As you can see, Emina and Wisam actually already had their official marriage ceremony beforehand, and this was the day for the friends and family to celebrate with them! Definitely something unique and so much fun.

Thanks so much you two for letting us be a part of your day!

Lauren :)

James came to Canada from Australia. And now James is returning to Australia with his girlfriend, Lauren. James had taken some wickedly awesome photos of us and we wanted to return the favour before he left.

So off we went to Calgary for a day trip to do nothing but shoot James and Lauren. It was a fun little escape from the office and a refreshing change of scenery.

When we rolled into Calgary did a quick location scout on our bikes and found one of the coolest places ever. James and Lauren showed up and the game was on.

So much fun was had here. We went on a bit of a photographer power trip and made James get into the shopping cart. I won’t show you all the photos of him giving us the finger for letting Lauren push him down the alley, but just know there were many ;)

Of course he got his turn for a bit of revenge.

Heck yes! How amazing is this photo. The tone, the feel, the light. Perfection.

This one ain’t too shabby either :)

I was getting a shot from an “aerial perspective” and decided to use Rob as my ladder. James had to take a shot and Rob was kind enough to act as though he was in excrutiating pain. Thanks Rob!

We had pretty much the best light in the world. Honestly we kept these two up on this rooftop forever and used the classic line “Just one more shot” a million times because we just couldn’t give it up!

Haha, if you’ve never met James and Lauren this will let you know just what their personalities are like!

So at the end of the shoot we’re all pretty wiped out and hungry and ready to go eat. And of course as soon as we get down to the entrance of the parking garage we were shooting in we found the door to be locked. Oops! First Lauren attempted to climb over the fence. No go.

Then we tried a synchronized jump on the weight pad that lets cars open the door. Clearly we haven’t been eating enough lately, because that was a miserable failure.

Eventually after a bit of wandering we did find an emergency exit, hoped that no alarm would go off, and pushed out in to the glorious freedom of the outside. It was a bit of a walk to get back to the cars, but a funny end to an awesome evening.

These two crazy kids are now off on their way to Australia and ready to tear it up down there. Hopefully one day we’ll make to Oz and get to hang out there!

And if you, our awesome blog reader, want to have this much fun with us and take some wildly awesome photos, make sure to contact us soon so we can hang out before the summer is over!

Lauren :)

Here we go with some more fun photos. You guys are seriously spoiled with all these awesome sessions, what’s going to happen in the winter when the weddings stop! Eek! We’ll probably post a lot about Scooter :)

Anyway, with more awesome timing I’m posting these e-session photos up and tomorrow these two crazy kids are getting married! Fun! With the way these two rocked it out on these photos, I know tomorrow is going to be amazing.

When these two sauntered up at the beginning of the shoot all decked out in these dressy clothes we were pretty stoked. Dressing up just brings this other element to a shoot! Don’t get me wrong, we love shooting people just wearing their casual stuff (heck, that’s ALL we wear) but this was really fun.

This is one of my favorite photos in a long time!

These two are so much fun, now I’m all excited for tomorrow!!!

Lauren :)

Along with this theme of incredible connections we have going on, when we first met Cherie and Kevin we discovered that we were all going to be in Vietnam at the same time. Of course a little light goes on in our photographer brains and we said “Hey, let’s do a crazy awesome portrait session in Vietnam!”

Well, we did just that and blogged about it on The Wedding Travelers. Click here to see some of those crazy awesome shots.

Here are a couple to show you, done just outside of Ho Chi Minh City.

Well, the time had come for their wedding in Edmonton. Things got underway with Cherie getting into her Vietnamese ao dai. The wedding ao dai is the traditional dress and hat. In Vietnam you can see many women wearing a more simple version day to day, and it’s just gorgeous.

Then a tea ceremony at Kevin’s parents’ house.

It is tradition for the groom’s parents to bring a roast pig as a gift for the bride’s parents.

Costume change! Time to get into the Western style clothes. The shoes.

Final touches.

Haha, this little girl loved the petals on the ground and was trying to gather them all up!

The ceremony was at one of our fav places, the Union Bank Inn.

It was an emotional ceremony.

And then time for some fun with the bridal party!

And of course some alone time.

Definitely my favorite of the day!

WOW! Look at those blues!

This would be how Rob got that last shot :)

A Rob & Lauren guestbook in action! Made with shots from Vietnam, the guests loved it.

Their very cute first dance was complete with bubble shower.

Yes! Cork included!

And of course, the other view.

Aren’t these little favours the cutest? They had them made for them in Vietnam (we know, we were there too :) and they had to get it custom to make one blonde, lol! Not many blondes in Vietnam.

And one last shot of the crazy kids having some fun.

Thanks again you two for some fun in Edmonton. Where are we going next?

Lauren :)

Ten Bonus points to the first person who names him.

So I’ve been really looking forward to sharing these photos with you all. There are weddings days when everything just seems to work out perfectly and this was one of those days. As a result, I have waaaaaaay too many favorites, and am going to show you a ton of great stuff.

Total Rob & Lauren style dress shot.

Armand was all smiles getting ready.

And his boys were having a bit of fun with the rings.

Jessica’s mom presented her with a gift while she was getting ready and it was such a wonderful series of shots to see her reaction.

Last minute preparations before walking down the aisle. Haha!

Her dad giving her a kiss at the end of the aisle.

These two were so excited. This was Jessica’s expression as the pastor was announcing them as man and wife.

And Armand did a very successful dip kiss! Not always well executed, but he did a great job. If you’re planning one of these, I strongly recommend practicing!

Bubble exit! Now look very closely in the top right corner and you can see a stream of bubble juice flying upwards. It then landed right on Jessica’s dress! But nothing would get these guys down that day, and she just said “Oh well, at least it’s soap!” and kept going!

Best. Wedding. Ride. Ever! Seriously, we love when people do something a bit different! These guys rode around in this camper with their wedding party, and even decorated it all up! So fun.

Then time for portraits, yay!

Love this dramatic one of the guys.

They were looking good.

The gals were hot too.

What a cute bridal party.

And then we had to get some nice, natural and stunning shots of Jessica and Armand. This was my angle.

And this was Rob’s.

Nothing wrong with some simple, gorgeous shots!

Haha, 100% Rob right here. And yes, this is definitely in their gallery.

Group hug!

OH YES! Rob and I scouted out the location a few days before the wedding and stumbled across the awesome antique truck junk yard. Unfortunately there were no entrances into the main junk yard (and trust me, we looked everywhere!) but we were able to use one truck just outside of it. Best. Spot. Ever.

Sha-BAM!

Possibly my favorite bouquet shot to date. Awesome fact: Jessica made the bouquet herself! You go girl!

Giving her baby some love!

I wish I had words to describe how this image makes me feel. But I don’t. Just look at it and feel it and you’ll know. What is so wonderful about it is that this is just behind their acreage so it’s very special.

Their puppy wanted to be in all the photos! That was cool with us though.

Rob is getting so crazy good with the manual focus lens.

Now this is a sweet photo. But look in the top left corner. Check out those storm clouds rolling in.

Well, the rain sure did come. And it came hard. Jessica took off back towards their house and Rob ran after her. I can’t get enough of this shot.

What was even better was that after a few moments, and halfway back to the house, the rain abruptly stopped. Rather than continuing on, Jessica just stopped where she was and was ready to keep shooting! So we threw Armand in there an got some amazing shots. Check out that sky!

Again with the uniqueness, the whole bridal party made their entrance to the reception on quads! Jessica and Armand are in the big one up front.

The reception was full of silliness…

Cuteness…

And tons of fun.

I don’t think I need to tell you how much we loved this day. Jessica and Armand, thank you so much for spending your time with us, and letting us take photos of you two for hours! They are some amazing shots and I can’t wait to get cracking on your album. It is going to be stunning!

Lauren :)

So after shooting a million weddings so far this summer, as well as a ton of portrait shoots, meetings, brainstorming sessions etc. (a friend looked at our schedule yesterday and just started to laugh. Yeah, we’re busy) Rob and I decided to allow ourselves a rare Saturday off.

Today we’re going to have a ton of fun, take it easy, and just give ourselves a bit of time to relax and recharge. I think on the menu is brunch (I love brunch!), tennis, longboarding, shopping, dinner and a movie. It’s going to be an awesome day.

Here are a couple shots I took last week of a friend just having some fun at a skate park. Let me know what you think! It’s definitely different from wedding photography, but I had fun. We already have plans to do some crazy snowboarding photos this winter!

What do you guys do on your days off?

Lauren :)

P.S. This is the first post that qualifies for the comment contest, so comment away! Tell me what you think of skateboarding photography, and what you do with your precious days off!

We really love to take photos. That’s pretty evident. But having to shoot for clients every weekend is pretty draining on your creativity. It seems counter-intuitive, but it can actually really help for us to go out and shoot but with no goal in mind. Just to have some fun with a friend, take some cool shots, and just enjoy shooting and experimenting.

Enter Steve. Those of you who have been following along with the blog for a while already know this handsome dude. He is Rob’s best friend, and a great guy to hang out with. He’s the reason we are photographers today, and even though he hasn’t been doing photography lately (he’s too busy being a super cool engineering student) we know we’re going to have tons of adventures with our cameras in the future. Who knows, we might even be able to convince him to join us! Photographers make way more money than engineers…..right?

Anyway, we’ve been wanting to shoot with him for a while now, and finally got a free evening. We packed up the car and drove Downtown to a cool little spot. There was some longboarding, laughing, sticking out tongues, and all the good things that go into a great shoot. Here are the results:

Steve is a pretty crazy athletic guy and was able to scurry up this wall with no problems. I think he’d be pretty awesome at parkour.

I told you so.

At the beginning of the shoot, like most people, Steve was unsure of what to do, where to look, what to do with his hands ;) So I told Rob to make him laugh. Rob stood behind me and did a weird little dance and Steve sure did laugh!

He was also able to bring out the modeling skills.

Rob really digs this sequence.

Shooting a guy skateboarding past with a manual focus lens in a dark parking garage = tough. Rob = a superhero.

Thanks Steve for spending an evening with us! Can’t wait for round #2!

So it’s about time we got another wedding up here, wouldn’t you say?

Spending our day with Jolene and Brian and their friends and family was just spectacular. We were lucky to have the talented James Day tagging along with us on this shoot, which gave Jolene and Brian tons of great photos!

Here are a few of ours:

The details at this wedding were just fantastic. Get this. Jolene and her sister hand painted the program details of the ceremony on these amazing fans for the guests!

Jolene’s entrance was very emotional. Brian was a little teary.

And so was Jolene.

She gave her dad a huge hug at the altar.

The ceremony was at the Mayfield Inn and was just perfect for their hybrid Chinese/Western wedding! The huge pagoda was a fantastic backdrop.

They were so happy on their way down the aisle.

Then Jolene changed into her traditional Chinese dress. It was pretty funny watching them trying to get it on over her head. Tons of laughs, for sure.

Then the tea ceremony.

The kids were interested in other things, of course.

If you haven’t been to one before, a tea ceremony is fairly simple. The bride and groom kneel in front of their guests. They give each person a cup of tea, the person takes a sip, then returns the cup to them with lai see (the gift of a red packet). This is done for all the important family members.

Then we took a few quick portraits with Jolene in the Chinese dress.

And then she changed back into her Western dress! I absolutely adore these detail shots.

Then off to the U of A for fun portraits. With these awesome shot I have to give James credit for the idea, although I think I got the better shot :) Brian has great form, hey???

The super fun bridal party. Check out the couple second from the left. She is holding him up!

Then it was time for some amazing shots just of Jolene and Brian.

They were sitting in the back of the limo, quiet and just enjoying being next to each other when I took this shot. So gentle and real, I adore it.

And then something of a totally different nature! If you’ve been to a Chinese wedding before you’ll know they like to make the bride and groom do some embarrassing games. Here Jolene had to roll an egg up one of Brian’s pants legs and down the other!

Their very cute first dance.

My favorite ring shot of the year. So far…..

And finally it was party time! The limbo stick came out, and Jolene had a very interesting strategy. She just leaned back on Brian and he basically carried her under. Hilarious!

And to finish it off, this little gem :)

Thanks for all the laughs team! It was such a perfect day!

Lauren :)

Here are a bunch of shots from the really great session with had with our friend Talya way back. She’s now taking over the Australian dance world!

Make sure to drop us a comment and let us know what you think! We’re getting awfully close the next comment winner!

Lauren :)

I’m not one for random philosophical posts (this is Rob!) but today when I was editing some photos this photo of Sara just grabbed me and I had to share it with you. I feel so lucky that we’re able to share and capture such beautiful moments.

Every since we got our totally awesome longboard we’ve been getting into the whole “skateboarding scene”. Sure we’re in our 20’s and 5 year old kids totally school us, but it’s quite fun.

Rob decided that he wanted to get a regular skateboard to start doing tricks on. He waited ever so patiently for a week or so while it came in the mail, and when the doorbell rang today he hauled ass downstairs to get his new toy!

Of course we went right outside, Rob in his helmet and me with the camera. Here are a few quick shots!

You KNOW any skateboard with a panda on it is pretty much the best thing ever.

Side by side comparison of our longboard and the new skateboard.

It’s a whole different board to ride, but Rob was able to nearly do a nice ollie. Lots of practice still needed.

Coming up tomorrow, a super awesome Western/Indian hybrid wedding, woo woo!

Lauren :)

P.S. We’re super close to the next winner of the comment contest, so share your thoughts and win free stuff!

So here we go! The really awesome Western/Hindu hybrid wedding!

Funny story, actually. Rob and I moved into a new house last year, and needed to find a new dentist nearby. We picked the dental office about 3 minutes from our house and scheduled checkups. Rob’s was first, so I stayed home and was working while he was at the dentist. Then I got a text from him saying “The dentist is getting married. Are we free for this date?”

Turns out Rob got to talking about what we do and Ashim, our dentist, was looking for a photographer! Next thing you know, we’re chatting with the dental office receptionist at Ashim’s wedding! Too crazy.

Anyway, the wedding celebrations started off with a mendhi for Michelle. As she isn’t Indian, it was WAY more low key than usual with only a handful of close friends showing up, rather than a jam packed house. It was nice to enjoy the process in a bit of a quieter setting :) I was able to offer some advice as well, since none of the girls had mendhi done before, and I’ve seen it roughly a billion times now!

One photo request that we are ALWAYS happy to do is incorporating beloved pets into the shots. Michelle wanted some shots of their adorable dog, and during the mendhi was the only time we’d be able to! The puppy really wanted to play with us and get some belly rubs more than she wanted to take photos, but she sat still for a few :)

The result! Can you spot Ashim’s initials in there?

Now for the wedding day! Ashim was looking super good.

And Michelle’s dress was just stunning. It was the perfect choice for their hybrid wedding, as it was like a traditional dress with some Indian-esque flair!

I LOVE the light and feel of this one. Just getting ready to get into the car to see Ashim.

We did their photos before the ceremony and ran around the University of Alberta campus having all sorts of fun.

Trippy! But SO COOL.

Here’s a shot of Ashim’s amazing Jaguar and I bet this is one of his favorite photos of the day! So cool.

The ceremony was held at the Coast Edmonton East Hotel in Sherwood Park (that’s a mouthful!) which is a great spot for Hindu weddings. They are all set up to handle the fire ceremony, letting us get cool shots like this!

Michelle and Ashim take their walk around the fire.

The knot that symbolizes their connection.

Possibly one of the most unique and personal favours we’ve seen this year! Toothbrushes (remember Ashim is a dentist!) with the couple’s name and date on them!

The decorations and flowers were beautiful.

And such cool rings! They had Sanskrit inscribed on their matching bands.

The dancing is always a blast, and some guests were really getting into it!

There you have it! Hope you all enjoyed!

Cheers,
Lauren :)

For some reason I’ve feeling particularly generous on this lovely Friday afternoon. Perhaps it’s the delicious jasmine green tea that I’ve been sipping, or the sweet sweet sounds of Andrew Bird, that have put me into this mood. However it happened, I decided to post up a huge number photos from this wedding. For most of my posts I have to really try to keep it small, and that means a lot of my favorite shots never go on the blog. Well today I just said “To heck with numbers” and just picked as many shots as I wanted.

The result, probably one of the funnest Friday wedding blog posts ever!

Let’s get down to it, shall we?

Steve getting some help from dad with his tie.

Tasty treats in Nicole’s room!

Nicole getting tied up by her sisters.

Doesn’t Steve’s dad look so dapper??? Love it!

Love love this shot. Check the mirror on the right hand side.

My precious :)

Nicole’s necklace was so perfect. Simple and beautiful.

She was looking pretty darn good.

Then we ran on out into the grounds of the Hotel MacDonald to do some shots. We did fun portraits before the ceremony and after the ceremony. That pretty much equals our perfect kind of wedding ;)

Gotta get the building in the background.

Isn’t the light here just so ethereal? Gorgeous.

Nicole’s bouquet was simple and stunning.

Then it was time for some fun with the bridal party. Steve and his brothers.

And Nicole and her sisters.

And of course when we see a location as cool as this one we have to do a couple quick shots of just the bride and groom!

This one of the whole group is so cool!

Possibly my favorite bride portrait of the year, no lies.

Then off to St. Joseph’s Basilica for the ceremony. I don’t think it gets any better than this candid shot of Nicole and her father waiting to walk down the aisle. Amazing light, and this tangible sense of anticipation.

We shoot at St. Joe’s quite often and so Rob likes to try and get some unique angles.

Right after the ceremony! What an adorable little girl!

Then we stole Nicole and Steve for some quick alone time portraits. These two are so much fun, even though it was pretty much freezing cold we got some really fantastic stuff.

Haha! I love this! The right hand photo is currently Nicole’s Facebook profile picture. Yes, she is just that cool.

We just couldn’t get Rob to put down the flowers (he really liked them I think) so he had to hold them and shoot at the same time ;)

Then back to the Hotel Mac for the reception! Don’t those cupcakes look so good, even as they are mashed into each others faces?

Super-dee-duper cute first dance.

Then the dance broke out and it was crazy! Here’s Steve showing his moves.

Yes, that’s also Steve. And yes, he really did the splits. And no, he didn’t collapse in pain immediately afterwards. He totally stood up and kept dancing! A+!

We snuck off with the rings to do this really cool shot.

Nicole’s choice footwear for the dance.

How’s the cupcake treating you, Leslie?

How insanely cool is this dance shot? Answer: insanely.

One thing Nicole mentioned to us before her wedding is that she has a Nana who is pretty darn cool. When the dance broke out her Nana was able to live up to that hype. She tore up the floor and danced to every song! And that includes “Get Low”. Here she is having a dance with Steve.

While a group surrounds them in a circle! Too awesome.

And a final shot of the whole group: Steve, Nicole, Leslie and Mark (who’s wedding we shot 3 weeks before), and us. Wow, Rob and I look pretty terrible at the end of the night!

I hope that brightened your Friday! Have a great weekend everyone, and leave some comment love!

Lauren :)

Earlier this year Scooter received an e-mail from a couple other cats seeing if we would be available to shoot their owners wedding. Scooter replied and the result is the wonderful wedding of Sara & Doug. Those of you who follow this blog regularly will know that I’m (Rob) not much for words, and so we’ll get to the photos right away. But before we begin there’s just one thing you have to know: Sara and Doug are awesome.

 Making faces…

I’m pretty sure those rings are Sara’s grandmother’s.

 A little rain… no problem.

Unintended. Sometimes when I’m sorting through photos I’ll fall in love with an accidental shot.

Intended

 Sara and Doug looked so good!

Not having photographed a Jewish wedding before I thought I would include a few photos of some of the different customs. When Sara and Doug first meet at the Chuppah Sara walks around Doug seven times, Doug then walks around Sara seven times, and finally Sara and Doug walk around together seven times.

 They drink wine, which is a symbol of joy in Jewish custom.

 A blessing by the Rabbi.

 Breaking of a glass marks the conculsion of the ceremony (Mazel Tov!).

At the time I thought this fondue tasted a bit strongly of white wine, now I crave it all the time. Cafe Select downtown. Dinner was absolutely fantastic, and a beautiful place for an intimate reception.

 Sara & Doug’s Ketubah: (a gorgeous looking) Jewish marriage contract.

We totally were given a to-go box filled with these delicious cupcakes and Sara’s mom was also kind enough to give us one of the beautiful floral centerpieces.

Thanks for letting us share in your day. You both have such amazing energy and it was so much fun photograph your wedding.

Cheers,

Rob

These Fotojournal boys seem to be all over this blog right now! It helps that they are both pretty darn fun, and so are their wives :)

Anywho, a really fantastic thing about our job is that it is so easy for us to call up a couple friends and just go out, have some fun and shoot. If we were accountants or something, it wouldn’t really be too fun to call a friend and say “Hey, wanna have some fun and do your taxes?” So way back in the day we called up Kyle and Alyssa and went and had some fun. Here are the photos:

Not sure what Alyssa is pointing at, but I imagine she’s saying: Look Kyle, this is what you’re supposed to be doing with your feet.

They are such cutie pies.

I love this one.

Haha, for this one they jumped over Rob! Kind of an interesting angle.

This one is too cool. They look so sassy.

Now this is honestly the most fun I think we have ever had on a shoot. Kyle showed off his cart-surfing skills while Alyssa pushed him around. It was hilarious!

And of course, there were tons of snuggles.

Thanks you crazy kids for hanging out with us!

Lauren :)

I’m honestly bursting with excitement for Sonal and Raj’s wedding. I get pretty excited for all our weddings, but this one will be taking place on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, following a week long cruise. So I think you can forgive me for being a little extra excited :)

So a cruise wedding in an exotic locale is awesome enough. Then add in the fact that Sonal and Raj are drop dead gorgeous (they’d give Aishwarya and Abhishek a run for their money, I’ll say that much) and crazy fun to hang out with, and we’ve got ourselves a fabulous wedding!

We did two engagement sessions with these kids, and today I’ll be sharing the urban portion. Get ready for some amazingness.

 I’d say this shot is one of Rob’s favorites of all time. He loves it.

 Sonal can do smiley….

 And serious with equal expertise. She rocks.

I adore this one.

 And Rob is all about the sequences.

 I’ll be sharing their second session soon! For now I hope you enjoyed these shots, and are now waiting with breathless anticipation for their wedding photos! They are going to be unbelievable. Trust me.

Lauren :)

Hey all!

So I have a few little notes to throw at y’all today. Strap in and let’s go!

• To all the couples who just got engaged over the holidays: CONGRATS! We still have a few spots open for 2009 so make sure to give us a shout right away. This year is going to be full of new and amazing treats for our clients, so if you’d like to be one of them let’s chat!
• Rob and I are off to the Digital Wedding Forum Convention in Phoenix next week! Exciting! Not only are we thrilled to be escaping the -30 degree weather, we’re also really looking forward to meeting a lot of new photographer friends. If you’re going make sure to drop us a line so we can meet up!
• To our beloved clients, and potential clients, we will have internet access while in Phoenix, so feel free to contact us.
  

And the most exciting news: the new Rob & Lauren brand will be launching this upcoming Monday, January 5th! The new blog is being carefully set up as we speak, the new logo is prepped, and we’re ready to roll. This marks the beginning of a new focus in our business, and we are so excited. Make sure to drop in on Monday to see what we’re up to!

And since it’s always fun to look at some pictures, I’ll leave you with these two Rob took yesterday. He and another photog friend bundled up and set off in search of some cool shots. A few hours and some thoroughly frozen toes later, they succeeded. Here are a couple for you to peek at. I’m sure Rob will post some more once he’s gone through them all!

 Cheers,

Lauren :)

Well, our flight for Phoenix leaves in only a few hours now, and then we’ll be attending the Digital Wedding Forum Conference. We’ve got our bags all packed up, our warm weather clothes ready to go, and are intensely excited about everything we’re going to learn. Just wait until you get to see all the great new ideas we’ll be bringing home! I can’t tell you how great this year is going to be!

We’ll be gone for 5 days, but will still be answering emails while away (though it might take a bit longer than usual). To our clients, feel free to email us if there is anything. We won’t be able to take phone calls, but if it’s urgent mark your email with “Urgent” and we’ll get back to you within the day.

And to our blog readers, don’t worry! There is still lots of new stuff to keep you occupied through the long boring workdays!

• First off, there is some fun new content on this blog! Have you checked out the Resources pages? For Clients we have some links to great local vendors. And for Photographers, Rob has been working on tons of great information, so make sure to check those out! We will always be updating those pages when we find new and cool stuff, so keep an eye on those.

• We also have some neat new stuff on the About Us page. Cool photos, and links to all our social media networking pages. Ever wondered what we listen to while we work? Believe it or not, you can easily find out from that page.

• Rob created an awesome new Facebook Page for our business yesterday. You can become a fan, and if you’re a client you can even leave a review! We’ll be updating it with new photos that won’t even be seen on the blog! You need to go RIGHT NOW and join!

• And have you noticed our brand new portfolio website? I think there are photos on there that have never been on the blog before as well, so DEFINITELY check that out.

Finally, we still have a ton of great photos to be posted on this blog. For now, I’m going to give you teasers from a bunch of sessions that still need to be posted. Enjoy!

And keep the comments coming guys! I can’t tell you how much we love to read them :)

Lauren :)

So here it finally is: the very last wedding of 2008. And what a wedding it was! Even though it was a bit chilly, all the girls were able to stick it out and we got some amazing images.

Since I haven’t blogged in a while, and since this is the very last wedding of the year, I’m hooking you up with a TON of images. Something to keep you busy over the long weekend (it’s this week, right? I don’t know, whatever :)

Shelly is half-Korean and this is the first time I have seen traditional Korean dresses. I thought they were the coolest thing ever!

 These two were so cute during their ceremony at St. Joseph’s Basilica.

I love how Shelly’s dad watched on. This church always has such amazing light.

Then some super fun portraits at The Royal Alberta Museum. Only downside: fighting for a cool spot! With this many big strong guys people in our group we were able to hold our ground quite easily :)

Love love love this one.

I have NO clue what happened here, but I love the result. Just a bunch of gorgeous gals having some fun together, exactly what a bridal party should be.

Man, we had so much fun! Even though it was super chilly and we had to spend some extra time Photoshopping out goose-bumps. Totally worth it to play around with these awesome folks!

The whole bridal party followed Shelly’s example and got a little silly.

Then it was time to sneak off with just Shelly and Colin. I have to say that these are some of our favorite bride and groom portraits of the year. I think you’ll see why.

And finally it was time for the reception at the Crowne Plaza. The decorations were amazing.

I ADORE this ring shot!!! How cute is this?

The best man’s speech was truly the funniest thing I have ever heard. I was crying with laughter. I love Shelly and her sister’s reaction here.

Colin thought it was kinda humorous as well :)

Isn’t this just the cutest first dance photo ever?

Here’s a GREAT sequence. First Shelly get’s Colin with the cake.

Then she takes off!

She hides in the corner…

And he whips the cake at her!!! Hilarious!!!

Here are some shots of their very fun dance party.

Tequila-face photos are the best.

And then, to finish up the night, Shelly enjoyed a nice shot of traditional Newfoundland Screech.

Haha, I just don’t have any words for this one.

And so ends the wedding season of 2008! But don’t worry, I still have a TON of portrait sessions to share with you, and in less than a month we begin 2009 with a Caribbean cruise wedding. Yes, for real. You best prepare yourselves because those images are just going to set a whole new bar of awesomeness.

Have a great weekend all!

Lauren :)

I think we need a cooler name for our “Trash the Dress” sessions. We definitely don’t go out with the intention of trashing anything, and the dresses are always just fine afterwards! It’s just so awesome to have all the time we want to create some spectacular images, without worrying about getting a bit of dust on ourselves :)

Anyway, we were so thrilled when Brittany and Terrance wanted even more awesome photos after their wedding. We took them to one of our favorite places in the city, and had some fun. 

 We had timed it perfectly to get the most amazing light.

 These guys are way too much fun!

 Sizzlin’!

 I adore this shot. You can just *feel it*.

 Believe it or not, we’re actually only a couple weeks away from our very first wedding of 2009! Wow! There is so much crazy stuff going on for us in the next month, we can’t wait to share it all!

Lauren :)

Greetings!

Wow, we’ve been out of touch hey? We had our seminar on Sunday which was super fun, and we were so happy to get so many wonderful emails from attendees. We’re glad we were able to entertain and inspire!

This weekend our first Canadian wedding takes place in Calgary! Yay! Today I’m sharing their engagement photos with you, since I hadn’t yet blogged them. Great timing, hey? Enjoy these, and then come back on Monday for a teaser of their wedding photos! All this year we are planning to blog wedding teasers on Mondays! Make sure you have your RSS feed set up (there’s a new link, so update if it hasn’t been working lately!) so you can see all the images as soon as they are posted!

Without further ado, some photos!

Lauren :)

Welcome to the first edition of Monday morning teasers! Every Monday following a wedding we will be blogging a few of our favorite shots of the day, so make sure to keep coming back!

Reina and Prav’s wedding was in the lovely little city of Calgary. The weather was beautiful in the morning, and even though it turned on us in the afternoon we still managed to get some wonderful images of these two very amazing people. I believe the following day Calgary experienced quite the snowstorm, so the weather was holding on just for these guys! Here are a few shots that caught my eye this morning.

 Enjoy your Monday everyone!

Cheers,

Lauren :)

Hooray for Monday! Isn’t this a lovely little way to brighten up the beginning of your week? I sure hope so!

So, Saturday was a beautiful day, as far as March in Edmonton goes! It did get a bit nippy, but these wonderful people braved the cold, and about 8 flights of stairs (even though I told them it was only 4) to create some amazing images with us. Can’t wait to show you all the rest!

 Lauren :)

Romy and Joyce are such a fantastic couple, we’re pretty much out of our minds with excitement for their wedding next weekend! The weather was really trying to prevent us from shooting their e-session (we were rained out one day, and when we were shooting these images we were nearly frozen and actually saw some snow!). But that didn’t stop the four of us from having so much fun, and getting some amazing shots. I’m so excited for this season to start, we’re loving spending time with all our couples!

Here are some of the shots we got with them. We also did a concept shoot that I’ll be sharing in a little while, once I’ve had time to fully process them all!

 I love the light we found here! So nifty. This totally reminds me of a couple of secret agents, lol.

 Romy is a fantastic photographer in his own right, and was able to borrow a 4x5 field camera for us to play with!! What an amazing piece of equipment! We’d never seen one before, and it was soooo cool! I guess you could call this shot a meta-photo, couldn’t you?

 Hope you all have a killer weekend! Our Chill Session is tomorrow so check back in on Monday for some shots from that!

Lauren :)

Happy Monday my friends!

Yesterday we had the wonderful opportunity to chill with 10 uber cool photographers! While we were all chatting in the morning I had a perfect view out the window of the blizzard that had taken over the city. But I knew that wasn’t going to stop us, and we were going to shoot no matter what! So everyone bundled up, and followed us out to an industrial area for some fun. To be honest, Rob and I were pretty worried as we were driving out there, and figured our shoot would be cut short. But we were having way too much fun, and were getting some mind-blowing shots, that I think we ended up shooting for well over an hour and a half in blizzard conditions!

Before I continue it’s essential that I give a huuuuuuge shout out to our models, Andrea and Mike. They drove all the way from Red Deer to hang out with us, and we truly couldn’t have had a better couple to work with! They were probably freezing cold the whole time, but never showed us anything but pure enthusiasm. We were so honored to create these images for them!

Check out the snow!!! In a normal situation we probably would have resheduled, but I’m SO pumped that we didn’t because it adds such a killer element to the photos.

 To get this shot I made all 10 photographer tramp through huge amounts of mud. We were all pretty dirty after that, but I maintain that it was TOTALLY WORTH IT.

 Again, we can’t thank Andrea and Mike enough for their amazing model skillz. They totally made our day!

And to all our Chill Session participants, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for an amazing day. You guys were fantastic!!!

Tons o’ love,

Rob & Lauren

I am seriously very very excited about these images. I had a super hard time not posting some yesterday! I absolutely love that we get so excited about every single wedding we shoot, and this was no exception. I don’t think the day could have been more perfect for Romy & Joyce, and they absolutely deserved it. Their engagement session a couple weeks ago literally had snow falling, and their wedding day was bright, sunny and hot! Hooray!

Enough blabbering, here are the pictures. I hope you love them as much as we do!

Joyce looked stunning in her qípáo, which is a traditional Chinese jacket that is elaborately embroidered.

 I think this is probably my favorite shoe shot of all time…yep. It is.

 And THE bridal party shot. The amount of factors that came into play on this one made this shot so unique. It would have only happened on a very very bright day (which we haven’t had many of lately), at only a certain time of day (20 minutes later the light squares were totally gone), with a certain lens (which we only started carrying with us on this wedding, we don’t usually bring it along), and with a specific number of bridal party attendants. I guess that’s a really long way of saying that this shot will be completely and utterly unique to Romy & Joyce and their wedding day. I absolutely love that!

 And even though the previous shot is so wonderfully dramatic and beautiful, I love this one just as much!! So fun :)

 And I don’t think I even have any words for this one. I just am obsessed with staring at it. Joyce just looked so stunning I don’t think it was possible to take a bad shot of her!

 Adorable!

 And I just had to share this one!! I’ve never seen so much dedication to getting that garter off! Joyce’s heels were giving Romy a lot of trouble, but he we determined to get it off!

 Make sure to drop us a comment and let us know what you think of the images! Or just tell these two how ridiculously gorgeous they are!

Lauren :)

Since we were crazy busy today I wasn’t able to get these puppies up early, so I gave you a few extra ;)

Laurie and Joe had one of those perfect days. They were calm and relaxed, the weather was beautiful, everything ran smoothly, and they just really enjoyed themselves. We were so so so happy to have been a part of it all! They also happened to have one of the most awesome bridal parties EVER! We made those girls walk down a huge hill of gravel in their heels, and they never even hesitated, they were actually excited about it! To all of you, thanks for making our day awesome.

 Haha, I LOVE shots like this next one of the boys. Joe is poking his best man in the cheek. I have no idea why, but I think it’s hilarious!

Now if you happen to follow me on Twitter or am my Facebook friend you would have gotten a sneaky peeky of this image a day early! Yes, it does pay to be our online friend!!

Joe has ups.

Aren’t they just the cutest. Yum.

Fav ring shot EVER!!! Yay!

Hahahaha, love this garter toss shot.

And the resultant melee, such good times!

Laurie and Joe, I hope you know that you’re the best. Ditto to your awesome bridal party! Hugs to you all! And hugs to our readers, thanks for waiting for this one!

Deets:

Ceremony at the Edmonton Christian Community Church

Reception at the Westin Edmonton

Lauren :)

Today I wanted to share another Moving Portrait with you, and chat a bit about the project, since we kind of just threw it out there without much discussion.

This is our loveable little cat, Scooter. Last time we traveled we had a photo of him on our laptop and looked at it every single day. Next time we go, this will be on our iPhone and we’ll be watching it all the time.

Scooter // Edmonton Pet Moving Portrait from Rob & Lauren on Vimeo.

So what exactly are these moving portraits, and how do we create them? If you’re a nerd-tographer like us, all we need to say is they were made with our 5DMKII, and you’ll understand. But if you’re not, then here’s a quick explanation.

Our still camera that we use to shoot our images can also produce high definition video. Essentially we have all the abilities in terms of the *look* of our images, but now with video. This isn’t something a Handicam from Best Buy can do. Trust me, we’ve been looking for this for over a year now! We’re able to create a very cinematic look to the video, and we’re absolutely loving that!

I think we’ve suprised even ourselves with how powerful these short videos are. If you saw Richard and Talya’s video, that was was especially moving for us. So many things happened during that shoot, that happen during most shoots, that stills just don’t quite capture. I’m thinking especially of their dancing, as well as when Richard gave Talya about 8 kisses in a row. Trust me, that looked weird in the stills, but unbelievably adorable in the video! The first time Rob showed me what he had put together, I actually started crying. It’s so powerful! We can’t wait to start creating these for more clients!

And we’re intending to create these for more than just newborn sessions, so if you’re interested in having us create a Moving Portrait for you, make sure to drop us a line and we’ll give you more details!

And finally, I just want to mention that as special as these Moving Portraits are, we strongly strongly believe that still photography is, and will always be, the core of our business. The video is beautiful, but still can’t do something like this:

 Have a wonderful evening everyone!

Lauren :)

Wow. Where to begin? Our weekend was completely packed with Shazma and Matt time, and I don’t think we would have had it any other way! These two must be just exhausted today, because they were going even harder than us the whole time! They didn’t even get a chance to peek at the photos during the reception they were so busy, so I’m going to post a ton for them today!!

We started off with the mendhi on Friday. Shazma’s design looked just unbelievably amazing!

 Then it was time for the pithi. This design was created with coloured rice under Shazma’s chair.

Shazma’s friends and family fed her sweets, showered her with rose petals, and gave her good wishes for her marriage.

 Matt’s friends, on the other hand, did this to him….

 I think this may be my favourite groom portrait ever, lol!! Poor Matt, he smelled so terrible!! I think they got him with salad dressing, peas, sprinkles, pop, peanut butter, ketchup, whipped cream, jello powder, honey, and a bunch of other such things. But he was a good sport, and got to hug all his buddies at the end, so he got his revenge.

 Then the wedding day!! Shazma’s shoes were just beautiful.

Oh, and so was she :)

Love this ring shot Rob took. So simple but gorgeous.

 This was Shazma’s reaction when she looked out the window and saw Matt and his groomsmen waiting for the girls to arrive.

 We took this awesome bridal party around a parking lot downtown, and it was crazy fun!

Then it was Shazma & Matt time.

 When we were driving around scouting locations for these cuties, I said to Rob “Let’s do something EPIC for them”. Then we found this spot. And we did something epic.

And that’s not even the half of all the crazy fun we had with them! You’ll have to wait for the full wedding post for the rest. But trust me, much more to come on this blog this week!!

Shazma and Matt, you guys are amazing, thank you for such a fabulous weekend!

Tons o’ love,

Lauren & Rob  :)

Recently we spent an afternoon with our friends Mark and Andrea, and their little girl Lila. Andrea is a fellow photographer, and we’ve been so lucky to get to know her over the past couple of years. And Lila is just one of those babies that you become addicted to. Seriously. Addicted.

During our shoot Rob created his first Moving Portrait of a family, and I think it’s one of his best yet. Check it out:

Hanki Family // Moving Portrait from Rob & Lauren on Vimeo.

And here are some of the stills. I’ll probably end up sharing a ton more with you guys in the next couple weeks, but I wanted to get some up for these guys to peek at :)

  Lila is such a poser. Check her out!!

 What a seriously seriously beautiful family. We’re so lucky to know them!

 During this shoot I realised I have a bit of an obsession with flying baby photos. I’m ok with that.

 Ok, I need to get back to work! So many other amazing portrait sessions to edit. But Hankis, thanks so much for spending the afternoon with us. We love you guys a ton.

Lauren :)

I’d like to introduce you to these two stunning people, because they are going to be on the blog on Monday! Yep, these kids are getting married this weekend. We met with them this week to chat about the big day(s) and holy smokes. It’s going to be spectacular!!!! That is a Monday morning post you definitely don’t want to miss!

 Ok, check out that image on the right. With the bird. It’s trippy right? One of my favourite images I’ve created this year, no lie.

 Man, I can’t wait until this weekend! This wedding will be the definition of epic. Just wait.

Lauren :)

I have a feeling that this is going to be a bit of a routine now, introducing a couple just before their wedding by showing their engagement photos! Karen and Gary are getting married tomorrow and we’re so so stoked for it! I’ll just say one thing: 3 hours of wedding portraits, heck yes!! So check back in one Monday because I KNOW there are going to be some fun shots.

For now, check out their engagement session. Karen and Gary have been together for something like 10 years (give or take, I can’t quite remember!). At that point, I really feel like couples know how to play, and goof around with each other. That makes things fun for us :)

GAH!! I’m so in love with these two shots!!! Mine on the left, Rob’s on the right.

 YAY!!!

 Fun times! Tomorrow is going to rock.

Lauren :)