Breanne and Ryan’s wedding was absolutely amazing.   It was my first time shooting at Swaneset in Pitt Meadows, and I had been excited about it for a while.  When I scouted out the location prior to the wedding it was a gorgeous day, and I prayed and prayed that the wedding day would be just like it.  It didn’t look good – we had been getting rain straight for about a week – but it just so happened that right in the middle of that super long rainy stretch, I got my day of sun on Breanne and Ryan’s wedding day.  :)

I arrived right as the girls were finishing getting ready.  Breanne looked so gorgeous!

I stole her shoes and custom made necklace for a few detail shots: We planned to do pictures before the ceremony while it was still light out,  so Breanne headed outside to see Ryan for the first time that day.  You can see her in the distance below as Ryan patiently waits for her on the bridge:  So happy!  :) Did I mention Swaneset is a gorgeous venue?

We headed to the front entrance to use the super cool + long entrance way. Getting light like this in January is practically unheard of in Vancouver.  So lucky! Our next stop was down the road at Pitt Lake.  Breanne and Ryan are both professional waterskiers, so we thought pictures on the dock would be fitting. I’m pretty sure British Columbia is the most beautiful place on earth.  (Breanne and Ryan are pretty good looking too.)    :P The guys: Wedding party in the mountains:
The girls: Seriously, could it have been a more amazing day?

I’m so happy with these – stay tuned for the rest in a few days.  :)

Hope you’re all having a good Tuesday!

Is everyone excited?  Awesome; you should be!  Sooooo I haven’t blogged for about two weeks, and I feel kinda guilty about it.  Yes, I was having a glorious holiday and some much needed time off, but I didn’t mean to neglect the blog!  :P

I had decided to gather up a ‘best of’ series of some of my favourite shots from 2009 to reflect on what I’ve accomplished this year, and to kick off 2010.   I was getting ready to post them a few minutes ago…. when I decided that was just kinda boring for a grand return from a two week hiatus AND the start of the year.   So…. I decided to turn it into a competition.  :D

To all the awesome, super cool couples that I photographed last year:  If you made it into my favourite engagement shots of the year (featured below), you are in the running.

PRIZE: A ‘Just Because’ photo session with me on or around your first anniversary.  The possibilities for this shoot are endless, and believe me – I have a ton of cool ideas.  The only limitation is that it takes place somewhere in the Vancouver /  Lower Mainland area.

RULES: Either leave a comment on this blog post with the couple’s names or a description of the image, or vote for your favourite here on Facebook. You can vote for as many couples as you like, but only once per couple.  YES, you can vote for yourself.  YES, you can get your friends, co-workers, cousins, cousins friends AND your mom to vote for you.   If your friend sent you here to vote for her but you don’t like her image the best, YES, you can vote for her anyway.  :D

Some lucky couples have two images included – votes from both images will be added together for those couples.

Voting ends Monday, **JANUARY** 11th at 11:59pm.  The winners will be announced to the world on the blog Tuesday morning.

Julie and Ryan at Queen Elizabeth Park:

Jessica & Jason in Fort Langley:

Jenny & Shawn at Westminster Abbey:

Tina & PJ at Peace Arch Park:

Colby & Steve at Crescent Beach:

Breanne & Ryan at Crescent Beach:

Emily & Paul at Vandusen Gardens:

Jen & Rob at Campbell Valley Park:

Brenda and Brian at their farm in Richmond:

Jessica and Curtis in a Port Kells field:

Kelly & Chad at Queen Elizabeth Park:

Wafa & Bilal at Stanley Park:

These last ones are from my sister’s and brother-in-law’s engagement session at SFU.  They made my ‘favourites’ cut, but her and Mike are obviously disqualified.  Sorry Kate!  :P

CLICK HERE to vote now on Facebook, or leave your vote in the comment box below.

I hope you’re all having a good Tuesday, and Good Luck everone!

1) Design my wedding invitations and my wedding guestbook.

2) Send my old 50mm (that I broke while backpacking in Peru this year) off to Canon for some T.L.C.

3) Edit my pictures from Peru and put them in an album.

4) Do everything I haven’t done yet and should have done already for my wedding.

5) Edit my sister’s wedding pictures and design her album.  You know that old saying about how the carpenter’s door never gets fixed, the doctor’s family gets sick etc. etc.?  It’s true about photographer’s families too.  My sister has been patiently waiting for the remainder of her wedding photos, NONE of which she has seen, since July!  Bad Bad me.

PS  NO, she hasn’t been bugging me about it and YES, she is a saint.

Aaaanyways, I was kicking off this wonderful ‘I have time for me!’ month this morning by sorting through all the pictures that have accumulated unseen on my hard drive this year.  Here are some randoms of what I found:

This is me back in June at a girls’ poker night with one of my best friends (and bridesmaids), Justyna.  It made me happy because she is currently studying law far, far away at Dalhousie.   She’s coming home for Christmas though – yay!  Sidenote:  Check out how many chips we both have – I guess wasn’t doing so well…

Another random:  This is the view from a super awesome secret location (we trespassed, so I’m keeping the location hush hush) Adam and I found this summer.  We had a quiet picnic here, and we were just surrounded by buttercups.  So pretty.  The view felt more like something you’d see in Europe than British Columbia.  I remember for dessert Adam packed vanilla ice cream in a giant coffee travel mug surrounded by a bag of ice.  Ingenious!  Adam packs the best picnics in the whole world.

I’m just starting in on editing Katie’s pictures (my neglected big sister I mentioned earlier).   :)  Here are a couple from the morning.

The first is what I would call the fake “I’m-so-nervous-it’s-my-wedding-day” look.  The second is maybe the real one?

Favourite.  Yes, it’s grainy (I didn’t do any light set up – give me a break people, I was the maid of honour!) but I don’t mind it.  I love the expression, and I love how you can see Mike (Katie’s husband) hugging his mom in the background too.

Anyways, those were my little discoveries today.  I just got a GORGEOUS album in for Julie & Ryan, so stay tuned for pictures of it (as soon as Julie gets a chance to see it.)   Hope you’re all having a great Friday!

Here are some of my faves:

Colby looked so awesome – her super cool shoes and jeweled bodice were balanced out perfectly by her classic hair and pearls.

Can I just say how awesome it is that Colby wore bright purple shoes with lightning bolts on them?  As a die-hard Harry Potter fan, I am of the opinion that lightning bolts are always a good thing.  Wait until you see the guys shoes….

Colby’s mom had a picture like this with her mother on her wedding day, so we tried to recreate it for her with Colby:

Beautiful flower girls:

We did half of the portraits with a more urban look, and half natural.  These were taken at the new Kwantlen campus in Cloverdale, which turned out to be an even better location than I had hoped.  Love the colour tones:

Here are the guys shoes!!!!  I bet they were 10.2x more comfy than dress shoes.

Colby is one of my most photogenic brides.  Easy peasy.

Steve wasn’t too tricky either:

We walked just down the street to get something a little different:

Their wedding party was a hoot:

Steve’s family is very Dutch, so it was fitting that he bust open a can of Heineken (in his wedding colour, to boot!).

This is why I love these guys:

Love this one:

Favourite:

Colby & Steve – you guys are seriously awesome.  I’m so happy to have met you, and love love love these pictures so much!

PS When you start having the cutest little blonde kids ever, pretty please let me take pictures of them.  :)

The wedding took place at Cammidge House in Boundary Bay, and it was pretty much a photographer’s dream.  Here are some of my faves:

I loved Jacqueline’s comfy yet sparkly shoes – perfect for the beach ceremony.

Cool mirrors in the ‘getting ready’ room?  Yes please.

A friend of Jacqueline and Brandon’s played acoustic guitar during the beach ceremony.  It was so beautiful and so perfect.  Truth was, he had just gotten stung by a bee – on his hand!!!  No one could even tell.  What a trooper!

Check out the sky – perfect, right?

One of my fave ‘first kiss’ shots ever.

Lol.

Love this one.  

I love the strand of Jacqueline’s hair that got caught by the wind in this one.  So purdy.

The grounds around Cammidge House were pretty darn awesome too – right up my alley.

This one I think would be my pick for a big canvas print.   Love it.

Jacqueline collected tons and tons of vintage teacups – best idea ever.  Instead of a ‘cocktail hour’, the guests warmed up with Earl Grey and homemade scones.  It was one of my favourite details/ideas at a wedding so far.

I wasn’t kidding about the sunset! 

The tented dinner was beautiful.  By this time it was really chilly out, but the whole tent was heated so everyone was comfy and warm.

Jacqueline and Brandon – thank you so much for inviting me to be a part of your day.  Wishing you all the best in your future together!  :)

Check out a highlights slideshow of Jacqueline and Brandon’s day HERE on my facebook page.