Surfing in Waikiki

When I was a kid I used to spend hours daydreaming underwater.

We spent all of our summers at the cottage on the lake, where I took breaks from swimming only to read. Not unlike myself, Tristan spent his summers life-guarding and sailing with his family. So naturally when we first started traveling together, we spent the hours of our off days in the ocean. It’s probably obvious that the rest of our time is spent happily behind cameras, whether working or not. Recently in Waikiki we found pleasure in both swimming and photographing, simultaneously. We were in Oahu for Sara and Craig’s wedding, a sweet couple also from here on the island. We spend our days leading up to their wedding photographing the various events and activities, which included a day of surf rentals and wave chasing with their friends. After hours of swimming and an inevitable sunburn, we left with this series from the day.   – Jenna

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Tim & Karen – On Film

Since the early spring I’ve been obsessed with square format film. It started with a small group show in Victoria and now i’m hooked and take this new/old camera everywhere. As you can see, I took it with me to Tim and Karen’s wedding and as promised i’ll share the few that I took.  – Jenna

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Tim & Karen

It seems within the wedding industry that photographers find each other wherever they travel. My first trip to Kingston a couple of years ago was no exception, as I was introduced to Tim Forbes at a local pub by our mutual friend, Ben Benvie. This year Tristan and I traveled back to Kingston to meet Tim at the same pub, only this time he was surrounded by his closest friends and his beautiful fiance Karen. Tristan and I were there to photograph their wedding the next day at Grant Hall, on the Queens University campus. Leading up to the wedding I think I may have told Tim I was “so excited” literally dozens of times, and Tim always replied with equal excitement. I loved seeing how excited he was about his wedding. Tristan and I are so lucky to be surrounded by not only enthusiastic brides, but grooms as well. As for Karen, I felt she always carried herself with such grace. During the portrait session Tim kept noting, “I can’t believe how great you are about this”. She is quite honestly the perfect match for Tim, and I could really see a difference in his smile from the first time I met him, years before.

For us the first wedding of the season is always a memorable one, and this was even more so.

We are so thankful for the friendships we’ve made (including you Scott!) and the trust they all had in us. If you’d like to see the slideshow from the day you can view it here. Tomorrow i’ll be posting the film photos we took through out the day. – Jenna

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Alex & Joey

Quite a few people ask us why we love photographing weddings, or what we love most about it.

I’m sure this is a question asked to a lot of photographers. In response, Tristan and I always comment on how we love to watch families and their interactions with one another, regardless of how subtle or obvious. More often than not I refer back to Joey and Alex’s wedding as an example. This wedding was held on their family’s island last summer, in the gulf islands. They already have two beautiful children and have been together for years, so their wedding was symbolic of the relationship that they already have and the life they’ve already built. Tristan and I hadn’t actually met either Joey or Alex until the day before the wedding at their rehearsal dinner. Through a rather large group of people I could tell almost right away who they were once i’d found them, by their beaming smiles. Not only did we find that they were so in love with one another (which lets face it we hope is obvious with all our couples) but with every guest at the wedding. Constantly we’d see people hugging, crying, and kissing. The wedding day was no different, and really a photographers dream. The location, decor, and all the planning that went into this wedding was incredible. For example they had circ dancers at their cocktail hour and an Abba cover band at the reception. Alex even purchased her beautiful dress from Kleinfelds in New York. But what we walked away with the most from this wedding was a strong sense of family love, and so this wedding will be held close in our memories for a long time to come.

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WPJA 4th Quarter Contest 2010

The results from the latest 2010 contest for the Wedding Photojournalist Association and the winter contest for the International Society of Wedding Photographers came out recently and we were lucky enough to place in 4 different categories. So many of our friends did great in this contest, including Dave Getzschman who was named photographer of the year for the WPJA! These photos are from the weddings of Sophie & Lee, Cari & Paul and Jeff & Holly, two weddings of which have yet to be blogged. Still many more 2010 weddings to come.

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Inn Love

Jenna and I are very excited to announce we will be participating in Victoria’s only high-end wedding event, inn love.   If you are in town drop by to say hello and browse through the other vendors.  We would love to see you there!

Here is all the info and links you need for inn love.

March 5, 2011    |     7:00 pm – 10:30 pm    |    Inn at Laurel Point, 680 Montreal Street, Victoria    |    inn love website

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Kate & Jay

The thing about friendships that is both exhilarating and frustrating is that there is no golden rule that disallows you to love people outside of your city or province.

I know this is obviously a good thing. But it can be hard when you realize there are people out there that you could spend days on end with and they don’t live anywhere near you. Kate and Jay are two of those people for us. Back in the summer we drove up north in Ontario to meet them for a pregnancy and bridal session. Kate and I had never met but instead we connected through her sister initially over our shared love of photography. Finally getting to spend some time with her was wonderful and overdue. We started out by photographing in her backyard, a beautiful forest. The funny thing is, even though Kate remembers feeling very pregnant at the time she barely looked it. The second portion of our time together in the summer was a bridal session with her husband Jay. We spent the duration of the cloudy sunset at their cottage beach, making poor Jay colder and colder. He did as great of a job bearing the temperature as Kate did hiding her growing baby under her wedding dress. The rest of our evening was spent chatting over homemade pizza with her sister Emily and nephew Jack while being entertained by stories of Jay’s childhood. We were reluctant to leave the next day, wishing that our cottages were next door to each other. It seems now that our families hanging out over homemade pizza might become a bit of a tradition, and we’re happy to have them (Emily and Jack included) in our lives, living close to us or not. – Jenna

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Deb & Sam

Carrying on the theme of quaint country weddings was my wonderful friend Deb and her husband Sam, who held their second wedding at Raystown Resort in Pennsylvania this summer. Their first wedding was even smaller, in a tiny chapel two years ago where Deb’s dad got to walk her down the isle. Tristan and I were photographing another wedding on the day of their first, so we had really been looking forward to their second celebration.

There is nothing quite like photographing your best friends wedding.

I loved being able to be with Deb throughout the important moments of the day, moments that as a bridesmaid you sometimes aren’t even apart of. Because of that I will always remember this wedding so fondly. These are the kind of days that remind you of why you became a photographer in the first place.. to capture what’s at the heart of your loved ones.  – Jenna

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Andrew & Cecily

It took probably 2 seconds for us to fall in love with Andrew and Cecily.

These adorable med students married last summer at our favourite wedding location, Stowel Lake Farm on Salt Spring Island. For us it was like spending the day with old friends, and every new thing we learnt about them and every person we met through them made us love them even more. After their honeymoon Andrew left for school in Ontario, separating them for at least a couple of years. At the end of the night we watched as they held one another in an intense and loving embrace. During the speeches their best friend talked about how lucky he was to watch them cradle each other after a long day, and by the end of the night we understood. Being witness to relationships like these are why we became photographers in the first place. Click here to see Andrew and Cecily’s slideshow.

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Meagan & Dave

Meagan and I have talked about her wedding for a long time. She has put so much thought over the years into what she wanted, and appropriately so as she made pretty much everything herself. She and her mother made her beautiful dress, she sewed all the table linens, made the invitations, the favours, the floral ribbons, the ceremony flowers the cake etc. etc. I could go on. The wedding was even held at her family’s house in Kelowna. We were in awe of her talent and dedication to the perfect handmade wedding. But what made this wedding perfect wasn’t the tiny details or the location as great as they were. It was the relationship between Meagan and Dave. Their minister mentioned during the ceremony that none of his couples have done so well in their marriage class as these two. That they had all the right ideals and tools to grow with their marriage and one another. I think this is pretty obvious and i’m sure it has been to their family and friends for years. They’ve got a lot of love ahead of them!  – Jenna

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