Rob and Lauren Blog

Here we go team! Some wedding pictures comin’ your way. Prep yourselves……and let’s go!

Angeline started the day at the very lovely Dolce Soleil Salon and Spa. We were given some pretty awesome clouds to work with.

She looks so ready to get married.

And here’s a twist. Usually I spend a hours with the ladies getting ready and Rob and the guys hang around doing nothing, until they spend about 5 minutes getting ready. Well this time Dean decided he wanted to spend the time doing some fun photos. He was so excited and so full of ideas, it was awesome. They started off at the Gretzky Statue in from of Rexall Place. Dean’s a big sports guy, so this was important to him.

What an awesome shot hey?

At the same time I was having some fun with Angeline’s dress and her little puppy, Maddy. What a well behaved little pup!

I love hanging out with puppies and kittens in the morning. It always makes things so fun and relaxed. Angie had to got a shot with her baby.

And the guys kept up the awesomeness. They headed over the Muttart Conservatory to get some really insane shots.

Ok. The definition of awesome. The boys, crazy clouds, reflections, pyramids, and the Edmonton skyline.

Rob is always so excited after it rains because he loves to play with reflections.

Does this shot not bring a tear to your eye??? Maddy the puppy watches mom off to get married.

Angeline and Dean decided to be incredible and do their photos before the ceremony (any planner will tell you that this is the best way to go, so your guests don’t have to wait hours between the ceremony and reception!). We like to do a little “first look” moment, so you still get that anticipation and surprise! How incredibly sweet is this shot of Angeline getting a good look at Dean for the first time that day.

We made good use of the blossoms at the Royal Alberta Museum. This shot is just pure romance and tenderness.

It takes a real man to hold a bouquet.

What a cool bridal party.

We LOVED playing with the totem pole in the grounds of the museum. These two look so amazing together don’t they?

Ok, the BEST EVER. This is the very first time a bride has ever thrown up bunny fingers during a photo shoot. You rock Angeline. You rock.

Sweet.

Gorgeous flowers.

When we did a quick scout of the museum grounds a couple days earlier we saw this really awesome wall. We HAD to use it for an awesome shot.

And a little bit of fun on a nearby bridge.

The greenery around the grounds was just gorgeous in the spring.

Haha! I mentioned how funny it would be for Angeline to sit in the statues lap, and she just jumped right up there! We have the best flients ever.

Classically gorgeous. No question about it.

And Dean looks flat out awesome as well.

Dean’s son, Jordy, had the ladies all over him. What can I say? He’s a stud.

What an awesome bridal party. Wait, did I already say that?

Cute shoes and socks!

One last cute little shot of these two. I couldn’t resist.

Angeline had the greatest entrance EVER!

What a great view of the ceremony. It was held at the ever-beautiful Derrick Golf and Winter Club.

It is shots like this one of Dean while Angeline says her vows that just make me adore being a wedding photographer. I just can’t say anything, that photo says it all.

Dean’s son during the ceremony.

Bagpipers at weddings are so cool.

Bling!

A very beautiful first dance.

Haha, the VERY LAST shot we took that day!

And a couple behind the scenes! Rob looking all cool in the pink flowers.

Me and the awesome bridal party. Wait, did I already say that?

Yay!

Angeline and Dean, you guys are the bomb. Thanks for taking such good care of us! Moments before she drove up to the ceremony in the golf cart, Angeline was getting all worried. Not because she was about to get married. But because she was concerned that we hadn’t gotten a chance to eat!!! What a great, wonderful gal.

So we’re off tonight for some Thai food and Batman. Woot! We’ll post some fun stuff this weekend, and then continue on with the awesome e-sessions and weddings during the week!

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of these ones!

Cheers,
Lauren :)

With all the e-sessions up on the blog recently, you might start to think that’s all we do.

WRONG!

Weddings are the backbone of our business, and what we spend most of our time doing. And Kim and Alistair are the perfect example of why we love weddings and have so much fun doing them. They were so relaxed, and just ready to enjoy and experience their wedding day. It was great to spend it with them and get these really cool shots.

Here we go!

We started off the day with some detail shots and were able to get some really great light on the dress (as well as a teddy bear, nothing is cooler than that!)

Love this ring shot. Rob took it with the ring resting in a cactus that Kim’s mom had in the house. This cactus only blooms for one day, and just happened to bloom on the wedding day. How amazing is that?

One of the flower girls decided to play peek-a-boo with me

Lol, don’t tie that tie too tight!

Rob and the boys always have fun.

The very enjoyable ceremony was held at the Holy Family Catholic Parish in St. Albert.

Their priest had such a great personality, and had the two of them laughing throughout the ceremony. We love to see couples relaxed and enjoying themselves!

Um, yeah. Alistair is pretty darn cool.

Possible contender for cutest flower girls/ring bearer.

I love taking shots with the guys. They were joking that they should climb up on this bridge thing, and I was all like “Yeah! Do it!!! That’ll be awesome!!!”. They look at me for a second, and then up they go! Totally awesome shot.

You might remember this behind the scenes shot. Here is one of the great shots Rob got from his awesome vantage point.

Sigh

We had just the coolest light ever this day. It was so perfect.

The amazing levitating Alistair!

One of my favorite wedding shots at the moment. Power and intimacy.

There are some shots that you don’t just see, but you feel. And this is certainly one of those.

Love this toast shot!

This may be one of the funniest dancing shots we’ve ever taken. Priceless!

And that was a day in the life of Kim and Alistair! You can see why we had so much fun. Great light, wonderful couple, and tons of fun. Rob & Lauren’s perfect wedding to shoot :)

More tomorrow! Leave a comment and let us know what you think. First to comment gets 10 bonus points!

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 :)

So as many of you likely know, between January and April of this year Rob and I were traveling South East Asia and India. We were very fortunate to be able to do quite a few photo shoots while we were abroad, and one of the most memorable would certainly have been shooting at the Taj Mahal with Megha and Chakshu.

It was a crazy, stressful, and amazing experience, and resulted in some of the most striking images I think we’ve ever captured. For those of you who didn’t see it I’ll post a few shots here and you can go and see more on our The Wedding Travelers blog.

What was really special about the whole experience is that we actually stayed with Megha and Chakshu in their home for a week while we were in Gurgaon (a suburb just outside of New Delhi). They really made us feel at home at a point in our trip where we were longing to be back in Canada. Without them I don’t know what we would have done!! We also got to go to the Lodhi Gardens in Delhi for a photo session in their wedding clothes and got even more amazing photos! You can see more of these ones right here on The Wedding Travelers.

Well, the time had finally come for the event that initially brought us together with Megha and Chakshu, and that was their reception in Edmonton. Megha has been studying here for the past 7 years to become a really awesome pharmacist. The whole time she and Chakshu have been having one of the longest long distance relationships I’ve heard of. When you are around these two you can totally understand how they made it through such a challenge, they were definitely meant to be together. So we were very excited to see these two again since the last time we saw them was when we said good-bye in Delhi!

They were getting ready together in their room at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, which was really fun to see both of them at once!

Megha was all smiles. I think she was really excited to finally have reached this last stage in their wedding! She had been waiting months since their wedding in India to get to celebrate with her Canadian friends.

I LOVE this one. A little different for us, but it’s just so interesting.

And believe it or not, those two crazy kids, Mona & Mohit made ANOTHER appearance with ANOTHER crazy awesome dance! These guys get around :)

The night was filled with lots of laughs.

Now this was amazingly sweet. Chakshu surprised Megha with a song. He sang “When You Say Nothing At All” to her as well as played keyboard. And let me tell you, Chakshu can SING. Wow!!! It was incredible!

And then a very cool first dance!

Jaggo!

Then we snuck them outside for a few really cool shots with the city streets in the background.

And that’s that! It was such a long time coming, and so many amazing stops along the way, but we were so glad to spend so much time with Megha and Chakshu. We’ll never forget shooting at the Taj Mahal with them, and couldn’t have asked for better models. I hope you guys are enjoying life in India, and I know we’ll be seeing you again soon!

Lauren :)

Yay! Wedding post!

Kaelyn and Skye have been so much fun to work with ever since we first met them. From a super fun e-session to a kick-ass rock show they have been awesome models. When their wedding day came around we knew it was going to be crazy fun.

It was.

They were married at the very scenic Eagle Rock Golf Course.

These definitely have to be my favorite bridesmaids dresses. Not only were they made by the fabulous Vera Wang, but they also had POCKETS!!! Am I wrong in thinking that’s the coolest thing ever?

Skye has ups.

Skye’s bandmate from Triple Exposure was the MC. His name is Mike and he’s pretty crazy!

The speeches were pretty hilarious.

Haha, this photo is too funny!!! One of the bridesmaids (who happens to have worked with Rob back in the day!) totally got biffed in the head with the bouquet! Ouch!!

So yeah, that wedding was kind of like, super totally awesome! Thanks you two for so much fun. I am sure we’ll be seeing you again, possibly at another Triple Exposure show! Woo!

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

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 :)

We booked Kerrie & Scott only a few weeks before their wedding. There was an unfortunate mix-up with their original photographer who needed to have surgery on their wedding day. He gave us a shout, we were free, and voila! It’s always so neat how things like that can totally work out, and we end up meeting two really amazing people and spending such a perfect day with them.

Here are some images from their day.

Kerrie had a very simple and classic wedding dress. I absolutely loved it! NOt to mentioned her wicked awesome shoes.

It was impossible to get this girl off of the phone, even to get her makeup done!

Love this shot of Scott’s brother with his hand on his shoulder.

Kerrie used to be a ballerina (like, a really awesome one!) and so music is very important to her. During the ceremony there was some beautiful music from a violin and guitar.

I adore this shot of her just starting to walk into the church.

And this one too as she meets up with Scott.

She had six flower girls. Six! They were incredibly adorable.

They had some great classic cars to drive around in and we definitely use them for photos.

The very fun bridal party.

Classic Rob.

Kerrie’s veil was so dramatic, it made for some jaw-dropping photos.

Their cocktail reception was held at Murrieta’s Bar & Grill on Whyte Ave.

All I can say about this one is: Boys.

It was such a great change in pace to have a cocktail reception rather than a traditional plated dinner. Lots more laughing and chatter in the air, and tons of great snacks to eat.

Oh. My. Goodness. This dish was amazing. Yummmmmm. I could totally eat it up right now.

Kerrie looked absolutely, classically stunning. Here she is just wandering through her reception.

Then it was time to cut the cake. Look at all the paparazzi we were competing with!

But they made for some cool backlighting for my shots! Kerrie looks like she’s being so careful to feed Scott, how adorable!

The speeches were so funny. This is evidence of the last time Scott will have the “upper hand”.

First dance.

So there we have it! After a long blog hiatus we come back with such a stunning wedding. You guys are welcome :)

I’ll post up some news tomorrow, lots going on here!

Until then,

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 :)

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 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 :)

Wow, it has been about a year since I have blogged! Sorry everyone, things here in Rob & Lauren land have been just crazy! In the past 8 days we have done 7 shoots with 7 groups of awesome people. Believe me, I’ll probably be blogging well up to Christmas with all the great stuff I still need to put up!

But I’m coming back from my hiatus in a big way. This wedding was truly one of the funnest (yes, funnest) that we have ever had. We don’t usually spend a ton of time at receptions, since once the dance gets going only a few people usually get out and boogie. With Leslie and Mark I think we were at their reception for 6 hours, and even when we left there was all sorts of crazy dancing going on! We had to pull ourselves away from it all!

So here we go, a crazy fun wedding with Leslie and Mark:

Starting with a few gorgeous details. Leslie’s cute and unique wedding dress.

The bridal flip flops. Honestly SO COOL!

And the gorgeous bouquet.

We had a bit of time to spare in the morning so we did a few portraits with her family. Here she is with her bodyguards/brothers.

And all the pretty ladies! LOVE the black and hot pink.

The groomsmen also got up to some silliness. Now this has been quite a popular pose this year, but since Rob and I don’t watch TV with commercials we don’t really know what it’s all about. Was there a commercial where people were doing this? Something to do with Captain Morgan? I don’t know, but all the groomsmen at a ton of weddings kept doing it, so we took photos :)

Then they got up to some silliness of a more adult nature. This is a very manly way to drink your shots, by the way.

But amidst all the fun a wedding did indeed happen! And a gorgeous one at that. Here is Leslie and her dad waiting to go down the aisle.

And Leslie laughing it up during the ceremony.

Then it was time to have some fun with portraits. Check out this epic one of the bridal party!

I might wager that these were the most fun groomsmen of the year….

And the ladies were up for anything, and totally hot.

Check out the gorgeous flowers!

These boys weren’t sure what to do with their hands….

Look at the cuteness!

We always find a million awesome places to shoot at Fort Edmonton Park.

This horse was all up in their grill. Leslie named him Stampy.

One of my favorite jumping shots EVER.

This is Mark.

This is Leslie.

And this is what happens when you put them together ;)

Yep, Rob took this shot. And yep, it’s killer.

They had their reception at the hangar at Fort Ed, and the decoration was just awesome.

But what was the awesomest was the entrance of their MC. I don’t know if anything will ever top it.

This is what she rolled up in.

Look closely and you can see their custom bride and groom bibs!

The MCs second outfit.

And her third. The guests decided to take the huge glasses from the centerpieces and put them to good use!

Mark is an Irish boy, and there were a ton of guests that came from Ireland to the wedding. So it was only fitting to treat them to some Irish dancing!

Then the first dance. They really had a lot of fun with it, and it was just such a memorable scene.

We put the ice on some ice. BAM!

Rock it out, Leslie. Rock it out.

And something else that I will never forget. At the end of the night they realised they had forgotten to cut the cake, so Leslie said “Let’s karate chop it!” and I said “YEAH!” and so they did.

I told you I was coming back in a big way. This was such an amazing wedding, pure Mark and Leslie to the core, and huge amounts of fun. I kinda wish I could rewind the clock and just experience it all over again! But I guess that’s what the photos are for, right? ;)

Anyway, I’ll be coming back and blogging more often now. So keep tuning in for so much more!

Lauren :)

P.S. Our Chill Session has booked up already! Hooray! We’re going to have such a stellar time with a great group of photographers! Thanks to everyone who signed up!

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.

Hey folks. Allow me to wax philsophical for a bit here.

One of the greatest surprises this job has handed us in the past couple years is the amazing ability it has to introduce us people we would have never met before. It constantly reminds us of how very very small the world is, and how everyone is connected in ways they couldn’t imagine (at our Chill Session there were countless moments when one member would realize that they knew another member through so-and-so, etc. etc.)

Now I’m not so much one for belief in destiny or fate. But every so often something happens that makes us stop and wonder. On more than one occasion we seem to meet the exact person we need to meet at the perfect time. For instance, we just recently got our rough grade certificate for our home so that we could start landscaping. Probably a mere week before that we sat down with a really cute couple to chat about their wedding, and the groom-to-be just happened to own his own landscaping company. Well, I’ll just say we have the most awesome landscaping on the street and can’t wait to shoot their wedding next year ;)

Sarah and Jon are exactly the kind of people I’m talking about.

Way back when we first started our photography business we had a Valentine’s Special for couples photography. An old classmate of mine from high school contacted us and we did a couples session with her and her boyfriend. He was really into photography and we had a great time chatting about cameras and lenses. But they had to run off right after because they were on their way to an engagement party for his brother.

Fast forward perhaps a year. Sarah and Jon waltz into our meeting room to talk about their wedding. They were the ones that engagement party was for! As we got to talking we realized not only was one of Sarah’s bridesmaids another classmate of mine from junior high, but Jon’s brother (one of the groomsmen) was indeed the fellow from the couples session.

Now that sort of connection is actually fairly common with us. People seem to talk a lot about who did their photography, and we get a lot of great referrals. But this story doesn’t end there.

That was just about the time when Rob and I were thinking of creating The Wedding Travelers. But we knew that we needed more than a Wordpress blog. We needed something custom. We had looked into custom blog companies, but they were crazy expensive. We still hadn’t decided what to do.

It came up in the meeting that Jon was a web developer who just happened to have finished up work on a website for a local (and very very well known) photographer. When we learned that he had a hand in creating what was widely known as one of the most unique wedding photography websites at the time, we were so impressed!

Then we found out his speciality is actually coding for blogs.

This is where it’s sort of hard to believe that nothing like fate exists. Here is the perfect person to help us with our project, at the perfect time, and it certainly helps that the two of them are also crazy fun and awesome!

Anyway, to wrap up a very long story, Jon and his friend Kyle made our Wedding Travelers blog, and from there they decided to create the service that everyone is buzzing about: Fotojournal.

Now we chat with these kids almost every day, we’re hanging out with them tonight, shared a lovely dinner a couple weeks ago, and are looking forward to wine night soon at Jon & Sarah’s! It’s been such a great adventure befriending these two, and we can’t wait to see where we all go next! I hear they are thinking of moving into our neighborhood, and I know we’d have some killer block parties!!

Question: have I EVER had that much pre-amble for wedding photos before? Nope, I don’t think so. But these kids deserved it. Without any more ado, let’s get to some awesome pictures of their beautiful wedding day!

Sarah’s gorgeous dress. I love this neat perspective.

Her reaction when seeing her makeup! Love it!

Meanwhile Rob was with the boys getting shots of Jon doing his hair. If only they knew how long it takes the girls to do the same thing :P

Love the light on this shot. Jon’s looking pretty good as well :)

Usually we post a shot of the bride’s shoes, but this time let’s see the groom’s!

Haha, cat attack!

Their ceremony was probably on one of the hottest days of the summer! It was held at the gorgeous Hastings Lake Gardens, and the resident puppy, Winston, was all decked out for the occasion.

I LOVE these flowers. How amazing do they look! And they managed to withstand the scorching heat as well!

An adorable moment between Sarah and her dad just before going down the aisle.

The ceremony was so beautiful and emotional.

And then it was some time for a few quick photos around Hastings Lake! I present to you, the amazing levitating groomsmen!

And the ladies had to get in on the jumping actions as well!

Here they all are looking stunning. Except Jon, giving us his silly blue steel face. I’d say there are roughly 200 photos from the day of him throwing this at us. It made sorting the photos tons of fun!

Pure. Romance. Honestly.

They were looking simply gorgeous that day.

And were total troopers. Imagine us telling them to go into a greenhouse on the hottest day of the year! They gave us a look, but they managed to stay in there to let us get some great shots!

Jon actually designed the cake! Right on, dude!

Rob managed to steal them away from the reception for a couple minutes to make use of some gorgeous evening light. We sure are glad he did!

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

Hahahaha! Jon sure got a lot of icing in the face, but he was a good sport, and said it tasted really good!

And one last one to finish it off. How cool is this?? Sarah wanted to throw her bouquet off the balcony, so here she is waving to everyone just before it goes!

Well, I hope you all didn’t mind my extra long and sappy entry today. I figured I haven’t posted in a few days, so I better put a bit more effort in!

Jon and Sarah, you guys rock. I’m just saying.

Hearts,
Lauren :)

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 :)

Can I tell you how hungry I get every time I think about Cori and Nate’s wedding? Weird, but true. The reason behind that strange fact is that they had without a doubt the best wedding meal we’ve had yet. Even now I’m taking a few moments to reminisce about it……..

It also helped that their whole wedding was crazy fun and awesome, but I’ll let the photos tell you more about that!

Cori and Nate are crazy artistic kids. Nate is a 3D animator and illustrated their wedding invitations to look just like them. We had to make use of them for the ring shot!

Oh, did I forget to mention that their wedding was in Bragg Creek, just outside of Calgary? And that meant we got to use the crazy gorgeous scenery for our shots? Oh right.

Cori getting all prettied up.

How awesome are these shoes? Totally different than the norm, and so sweet.

We had a ton of fun hanging out with this uber-cute puppy. Look at those eyes!

Love this one of Nate getting ready as his dad walks up the hallway.

Their ceremony was at the very gorgeous Snowbird Chalet. This is a neat shot of Cori walking up the aisle, with Nate waiting for her.

Great shot of the venue. Love those beams!

Then Cori and Nate hopped into their Mini Cooper and we drove off to Elbow Falls for pictures. As much as we love traveling to exotic countries, you honestly can’t beat the scenery of the Rockies.

Here are some shots of these two cutie pies.

How much do you think it would cost to move this place to Edmonton so we could use it more often? 10…. 20 bucks?

Then back to Infusion for the reception. How beautiful is this place??? This was our table!

I had to restrain myself from sharing like 10 photos just of food, but I’ll sneak this one in. Yum.

Speaking of yum, I was editing for their reception slideshow on the same table as this cake, and I can tell you it smelled amazing! It looked hella cool as well!

Light ROCKS!

We snuck them out in between courses for a few shots. This one rules over all because one of their wedding colours was blue….and so were their tongues! SNAP!

It took us 5 hours to make Nate laugh, and 0.5 seconds to make Cori laugh. True story.

And finally a cute little moment during their first dance.

Now wasn’t that wedding absolutely and truly worth the 7 hour round trip? Without a doubt. Thanks so much you two for sharing it with us!

Lauren :)

P.S. I have to tell you guys about something awesome that happened last night! We were just getting out of yoga class and a girl coming out stopped, looked at us for a second, and then said “Are you guys Rob and Lauren?”. Yes, we TOTALLY were “recognized” in public! Huge shout out to Dale for saying hi to us! That made our week!!!!

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 :)

So have you all noticed the new and completely awesome photos at the top of the page? Now that we’ve been upgraded to the newest version of Fotojournal I can change those as frequently as I want. So I have a ton of hilarious photos of Rob, myself and Scooter to go up there. Keep an eye on there to see all the coolness.

Here’s a great wedding for you to feast your eyes on. Let’s go! 

Kim getting ready in the morning. Love her eyes peeking out from under the veil.

Rob is SO GOOD at getting great expressions from grooms. I think he just has a ton of patience to wait for them to let their guard down. I always adore these kinds of shots.

And again, Rob is just awesome. Check out these detail shots of the church he took with our Tilt-Shift lens. Killer.

Lace details from the wedding dress, and her gorgeous shoes.

Just a moment in the kitchen as Kim is waiting to leave for the church. I love that the clock is there above her, it absolutely makes the shot.



Haha, so Jason has a tendency to get really really hot when he wears suits. So Kim sent him a little fan to keep him cool. I think he appreciated that.



Their ceremony just amazing, and there was so much warm light. Loved it.



We got to run around our favorite place: Fort Edmonton Park! Hooray!




This picture just sums up every wedding we’ve ever been to. As we tramp around with the bridal party, the groom inevitably gets to carry the bride’s flowers and bouquet. At least Jason looks like he’s still having fun!

Here are those fab girls.

And the studly boys.




Then it was time for fun with Kim and Jason. We found some really great spots in the park that we had never shot at before. That’s pretty much our favorite thing ever!





This horse was quite interested in what was going on!



Yet another shot of Rob’s that just blows me away. Sorry if it feels like pat-Rob-on-the-back day, but he just blew this wedding out of the park!







They did such a great job of decorating. I LOVED the red laterns!



Lots of laughs at the reception.



We may or may  not have gotten a bit silly as we were leaving…..




Hope you all enjoyed those photos! Let me know what you think!

Cheers,

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

First off, a very happy New Year goes out to all our readers! Last year at this time we were madly preparing for our trip to India, and had very little time to reflect on the previous year, and dream about the next. But right now we’re just taking it easy, and thinking about how things will go next year, and couldn’t be more excited. A quick thank you to you all for following us this past year, and I hope you stick around for all the crazy awesome stuff to come!

Today I’m hooking you up with one of our last weddings of 2008. I enjoy every wedding we shoot, and always come away with so many new favorite images. James and Allison’s wedding was like an apex in that sense. The day just ran so smoothly, so perfectly, so amazingly and we came away with some photos that I know will grace our website, and likely our walls. There is just such a tangible connection between these two, and they both smile so fully and truly, and the resulting photos are simply *real*. I really hope you enjoy them.

 I’ll let you in on a little secret. My very favorite photos of anyone are ones of them laughing. It’s such an honest emotion and seems to really let you know what a person is like. Allison laughed about 95% of the day, and so you’ll see many photos of her laughing. I love them.

 These are all the Australians who came across the world to see these two get married. James is from Australia, and clearly has some very loving friends and family. Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie!

 This one may very well need to be a huge canvas.

 The food at the Union Bank Inn never fails to impress.

James’ father also knows how to laugh.

I adore the look between Allison and her brother during his speech.

Love the light on this one Rob took of James’ father.

Fact: Australians know how to party.

Allison and James, thank you for the laughs, the fun times, the book recommendations, and for sharing such a wonderful day with us.

To our readers, I hope you enjoyed these photos, and have a wonderful evening filled with fun and friends!

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 :)

Happy Friday everyone!

Got a few pretty pictures to share with you today. You’ll be seeing more of these two in a just a couple weeks, and when you do, it’s going to BLOW YOUR MIND. I’m giving you fair warning. Prepare yourselves :)

 Haha, Raj was glad to finally be done all these engagement photos. He’s only got about 100 more hours to go with wedding photos!

 Happy early Valentine’s day everyone!

Lauren :)

Got a cool little announcement here for you all!

From March 6 - 10 we will be in Vancouver meeting up with some of the cities’ coolest people! Hooray! It promises to be an incredibly fun visit.

While we’re there we should have time for one or two portrait sessions! So if you are in Vancouver and have been jonesing for a little Rob & Lauren photography of yourself now is a great chance! Head on over to our contact form and drop us a line so we can set something up!

I couldn’t find our photos from our last trip to Vancouver (archived on an old drive. Boo!) so instead I’m hooking you up with one from Banff.

 Take a look at that landscape, and then think of the exact opposite, and that’s where our plane is taking us tonight! I won’t tell you where we’re off to, but hopefully we can blog a few photos while we’re away!

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 :)

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 :)

The more and more time we spent with Robin and Anita, the more we came to love them and their wonderfully sweet demeanor around each other. They are both fairly quiet, soft spoken individuals but as soon as we got them together shooting they just couldn’t stop smiling and laughing and just completely loving being with each other. I hope you enjoy these teaser images from their perfect wedding!

We were so excited to shoot at the Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples. It had such beautiful artwork all around, and stunning light.

The priest preparing for the ceremony.

Anita & Robin had their reception at the Hotel Selkirk in Fort Edmonton Park. What that means is that we get to use the park for photos, which always makes us incredibly excited! I mean, look at this place!!!

Robin has Metis heritage, so shooting around the teepees was definitely special for him!

If you look closely you can see all the poplar fluff in the air. The Fort was totally empty by this point, and it was completely quiet. The fluff was coming down like snow, and it was such a perfect moment! We were so happy to have been part of it all!

You can see the metis sash that Robin wore in this next photo. Once used to carry belongings, the sash now symbolizes pride and identifications for the Metis.

I hope you enjoyed those! Keep checking back in a lot in the next while since we have SO much to share with you guys!

Tons o’ love,

Lauren :)

Well, our contest for the Best Wedding Image of 2009 ended at midnight last night, and I’ve spent the morning counting votes. It was certainly a thrilling race, with nearly 600 different people voting! And that’s all individuals, there was no tricky business allowed. Trust me, we sent those ninja cats out to a couple people. I hear they were terrified, but promised never to cheat in an online contest again….

Anywho, you don’t really care about that. What you care about is who won. And whether or not you got that sweet free portrait session!

Since I’m still missing the Olympics, I gave our top three contestants medals for their bravery and dedication to this contest.

Coming in third place, which was the most hotly contested spot….

April & Sheldon! They get a custom 11x14 print for their effforts! Hip hip hooray!

In second place, with an astounding number of votes, the very romantic Laurie & Joseph! They will also receive an 11x14 custom print! Huzzah!

And in first place, the big kahuna, the ones who swept the competition, with an INSANE number of votes…..

SONAL & RAJ!!! YAYYY!!!!111!!!1!111!!!!!

Now, what’s really cool about these two being the winners is that even if I took out all the votes made by friends, family, and obvious co-workers (I can figure that out when I get a million emails all from employees in the same company ;) they still would have won. The votes that I was most interested in were those made by our own friends, family, past clients, and colleagues. We are very honoured to have our blog frequented by other photographers from around the world, as well as stellar wedding professionals, and were so happy to see them getting in on the voting! Those votes, which were completely unbiased in terms of loyalty, were going most frequently to this image. It was the true winner. It’s romantic, exotic, adventurous and unique: everything you’d like your own wedding to be! Congrats you guys!!! They will receive a gorgeous 16x24 canvas, and I definitely think they should pick this shot ;)

Ok, now, the winner of the free portrait session and 8x10 print is…..

Chelsea Luft!!

I’ll be giving Chelsea a shout to see if she is able to claim her prize. We did get a lot of votes from all over the world, so I don’t know if she’ll ever be in Edmonton! So sit tight, and I’ll announce if the prize is indeed awarded, or if we need to draw again :)

Thanks to everyone for participating, it was super fun! We have a little thank you treat for everyone who played, so check your emails :) 

Lots of love!

Lauren & Rob

All right, so here’s a slightly larger teaser of our wedding from this past weekend! Tihiro and Mike were married beside a lake in the Okanagan valley. If you’ve never driven through that area of British Columbia, I highly recommend the experience. Even though it was a long 10 hours of driving from Edmonton, it was just so beautiful we found ourselves immensely enjoying just soaking in the scenery. 

There will be much more to come from this wedding, just wanted to share a few standouts!

We got up early on the wedding day and strolled around the area. As we stood beside these lilacs we watched a few huge butterflies and bumblebees come and go. Then a hummingbird showed up and it was crazy to watch it dart around. Very incredible creatures!

 One of Tihiro’s bridesmaids folded about a bazillion paper cranes for the wedding while on maternity leave. That will start to give you a sense of how incredibly kind every person at this wedding was.

 The setting was just unreal. In Edmonton we’re not really close to any major bodies of water, so being right on the edge of a lake was pretty fun for us!

 Tihiro’s bridesmaids were very involved in getting her ready for the day, doing her hair and makeup. So much friendship going on.

 Love this shot Rob got of Mike’s brother in the morning.

And Mike’s mom ironing his pants for him. :) 

 Did I mention how much love was flying around? It was amazing.

Check out the gorgeous ring pillow! So stunning. 

 And the ceremony location wasn’t half bad either ;)

 Yay! Married!!

 This bridal party gets top honors for being amazing. By this point the sun was out in it’s full glory, and it got hot! But they never once complained, and were just enjoying getting to stand beside Mike and Tihiro on their big day. Made my heart smile real big.

 Some gorgeous portraits of the gorgeous bride.

 And then super fun times with just these two! If you’ll notice, Mike is about 5 feet taller than Tihiro…ok, slight exaggeration. But she’s quite short, and he’s quite tall, and the two of them together are just ridiculously cute. I found myself grinning every time I’d see them standing side by side. 

 And a final shot of the pretty nifty building their reception was held in! Not too shabby.

Man, this is such a tiny glimpse at the beauty of their day! Can’t wait to share more! But for now I hope you enjoyed these! 

Lauren :)

Well, this was a very special wedding for us. On Saturday Rob’s mom was married to an absolutely wonderful guy, and we captured the whole thing! It was certainly an intense experience, being so involved in the day, and socializing so much! Very exhausting! But absolutely worth it. Hope you enjoy these little teaser images! :)

Suzanne’s mom helping her with her nails in the morning. Adorable.

Recognize these two good lookin’ folks? And the crazy awesome cat? They sure seem like cool people….

This is Toby. He’s actually a lion in a cat’s body. 

And this is Merv. 

He has killer taste in shoes. Check those out!

Helping his brother with his boutonniere.

They clean up well.

Rob, his sister, and the gorgeous bride. Happy family photo!

Rob’s sister is pregnant, so what better opportunity to grab a couple quick portraits of her and her hubby? I swear, you put a couple in front of me, and a camera in my hand, and I can’t help but shoot!

Merv really knows how to pose. This was all him. Props, Merv. Props. 

They were just so darn happy. 

It was required by law that we show this photo absolutely huge. 

They look so absolutely and utterly fantastic in this image. True happiness with these two.

And gotta give a huge shout out to Merv’s niece, and our new step-cousin, Danita! If you’re an Edmonton bride, you’ll have heard of her company, A Chair to Remember. They’re kind of a big deal. She did a smashing job and made the reception look incredible. Next time someone asks me for a chair cover/linens recommendation I can honestly say “I have this cousin….” ;)

And I just had to put this one in. Rob’s adorable grandma, who is from Montreal, sang “La Vie en Rose” to the couple. Cute to a factor of 100. 

First dance. 

And a couple behind-the-scenes shots of us doing our thang.

Well, this is actually just Rob taking of photo of himself. Not behind-the-scenes. My bad. He just looks so darn cute I had to post it!

Lauren :)