Raising Memories: Making & Documenting Family Memories

Showing posts with label weddings. Show all posts

Leisha & Dan (Wedding)

Leisha & Dan
December 15, 2012

I was so happy when Leisha asked me to photograph her wedding to Dan. I've known both of them for a while. They both had parts in a production of Joseph & the Technicolour Dreamcoat that Ken & I helped direct when we were first married. They both come from beautiful, loving families that I am happy to know. It may have been a freezing cold day, but hearts were warm as family and friends came together to celebrate their special day!

The groom's father and all of his siblings, all together.

The bride's grandparents (I love this photo- two very adorable couples!)

They were each (somewhat literally) supported by great friends and family in their wedding party!

When they came out of the temple together, officially husband and wife, they kissed. I love this cute sequence:

Leisha had a beautiful, long veil!

...and a gorgeous cape!

Congratulations, Leisha & Dan, you're a beautiful couple, inside and out! You have many friends and family who love and support you and your future family- hope you're having a fabulous time in Europe, celebrating with more family!

Cherish the Dress (Amber)

Yesterday I wrote about my thoughts on the "Trash the Dress" trend in photography.
Today I want to share with you my first official "Cherish the Dress" session. :)

It was so fun to get out with my sister & create these photos!

We had to get some shoe photos- these were carefully chosen & needed some attention!

This is my favourite photo from the session. I love the setting, I love the way the dress looks. This was one spot we knew we wanted to use and the first place we headed when we set out to our location. So happy with the way it turned out!

If only we could've had someone along to take "behind the scenes" photos of this session. Oh, we had a great time hiking through weeds, climbing fallen trees, balancing on rocks in rubber boots, walking through freezing creeks to get edge-of-the-water shots, etc. Some great memories there :)

Now I need to clone myself and get some pictures of myself in my wedding dress! :)

If you'd like to see Amber's engagement photos, check them out here. :)

Trash the Dress, Rock the Frock, etc.

Have you ever heard of a "Trash the Dress" session? How about "Rock the Frock"? Or "Rock the Dress"?

When I first heard of "Trash the Dress", I saw extreme photographs of women in wedding dresses, effectively ruining them. Dresses on fire, covered in mud or paint, drenched in water, and so on.

Photo by John Michael Cooper

I've always loved the contrast of beautiful, new, fine things (like wedding dresses or fancy clothing) against an old, worn out, decaying setting. So this "TTD" trend sparked my interest. These daring, creative, edgy photo shoots drew me in because they were unique and they had that interesting contrast.

The symbolic idea behind trashing a wedding dress was that you wouldn't be needing that dress anymore. You're married, you're committed, the dress has served its purpose, so you trash it.

I love the idea of getting beautiful photos of a bride in a wedding dress.
I love the freedom of shooting the wedding dress without the wedding day concerns about getting a little dirt on the dress. I also love putting the bride in a setting you may not expect or that you probably wouldn't have the opportunity to do on a wedding day.

But I'm not all about trashing the dress.
I'm about cherishing it- creating beautiful photos that will be cherished. Beautiful memories that remind you of your wedding day. Photos that show off the beautiful dress you chose to wear on that important day.

I just felt the need to explain my take on this trend.
It's been on my mind a lot lately because of a couple of stories in the news about accidents when shooting brides in or near water. It's also been on my mind because my sister and I have been looking forward to the nice weather this year so that we could get out and create some special photos of her in her wedding dress after her Fall wedding last year.

In discussing our goals for her session, we agreed that sometimes these "Trash the Dress" sessions end in the water just for the sake of getting wet or saying that you truly "trashed" your dress. So, we set out to create photos that meant something to us. Daring, unusual, unique? Love it. And if she wanted to "trash" her dress (for real) in some way that had a meaning & purpose? I guess we would've done it. But that wasn't our goal for this.

I hope we succeeded. We had so much fun with it! I'll be sharing a sneak peek at the photos soon!

And I've decided I'll be calling this session a "Cherish the Dress" session. :)

Lacey & Josh (Wedding Reception)

I was privileged to be able to photograph Lacey & Josh's wedding reception last week. They were married in California the week before & came back to Canada to have a reception with friends and family here.

We had a little time to snap some photos of them behind the church before the reception started:

Then I took off with their wedding rings for a little while to get a few shots of them:

The rest of the evening was a casual, open house style reception which allowed time for lots of visiting among friends and family. It was a lovely evening and I was happy to be a part of it!

Lacey and Josh, you'll be missed very much by friends & family in Canada!

Flower Girls

My sister got married in September. Yep, a while ago ;) Their reception took place in a beautifully decorated barn. After the wedding, we dressed her & her flower girls up in their wedding clothes and went to the barn for a quick bride/flower girl or auntie/nieces photo shoot :) We didn't have much time because it was windy and cold, but we got these cute shots and I hadn't shared them here, so I thought I would now:

My mom made these cute skirts for the girls!

They were so cute twirling together!

My other sister & I made the little hair flower/clips for the girls from some extra fabric we had left over from the bridesmaid's dresses. Well, let's be honest... I tried to help her make them and eventually passed mine over to her to finish b/c hers was turning out way cuter ;)

Vanessa & Joe (Wedding)

I'm excited to post some photos from Vanessa & Joe's wedding! I had a great day photographing their wedding & I'm really happy with the results- it was hard to narrow down the photos to share here! I've put together several storyboards from the day to show you: