Yup, that’s me, I’m guilty.  I haven’t updated my blog in about a billion years.  BUT, today I have a treat for you!  Here’s a ton of photos from Jon and Amanda’s recent wedding.  Enjoy

Well here it is!  It’s been forever and a day since I updated my beloved blog, and I’m so excited to post these pictures.  Christina was a gorgeous bride and Scott, an absolute gentleman.  We battled some pretty horrible rain but made the best of the day in any case, and I had a total blast.  This is the second wedding I’ve shot for this family, and it was fantastic working with them again!  Enjoy the photos,

Christina’s sister Lisa was the maid of honour.  I was lucky enough to shoot her wedding in September last year.

Aren’t these two a stunning couple?

I have been looking forward to October 1st and 2nd eagerly since May when I booked my first Indian wedding.  Shez, short for Shazneen and her now husband Rahim had selected me as their wedding photographer.  As a big, young white guy I was probably an unlikely candidate but as they told me later I had impressed them with my prompt honest responses and professionalism when we met.  Shez did me a few great favours, including giving me about 10 double sided sheets of paper not only explaining her complete timeline for the day, but also explaining the significance of every part of the two day ceremonies.  Now on an average day, this kind of detail is a little overkill, but for my first Indian wedding it was immensely helpful.  It was a beautiful Ismaili wedding with an absolutely wonderful couple and a perfect introduction to Indian weddings.  I can only hope the rest of them go this well.

This is Rahim, getting himself organized in the limo before seeing his bride for the first time that morning.

A few words from Rahim’s speach

Shez in her beautiful sari.

Once Rahim arrived we got the ball rolling pretty quickly.  Shez helped Rahim out with his boutineer and then we headed downtown to shoot in BCE Place and Brookfield place.  It’s a great location but we had to move quickly to keep Security from stopping things in their tracks.  I have to thank my second shooter Dan Beaney of Square Studios for joining us downtown.  It was a huge help to have such a capable second pair of hands, and although all of the shots posted here are my own, he made an excellent contribution to the shots the happy couple will receive.

I always knew the henna was supposed to be ‘detailed’ but it really is something to see first hand.  (no pun intended)

A tender moment.  These two are so clearly in love.

At this point, Shez had changed into her evening gown, a more comfortable and lighter weight option then the traditional sari.

Champagne to celebrate the newly married couple!

There was a live performance during the reception hall.  This girl had some serious moves.

I was impressed that even after two days of ceremonies and conversation, SO many people still hit the dance floor with vigour when the music started.  Kudos to the DJ for managing to mix traditional type music with modern songs and rhythms for a mix that everyone enjoyed.

I’ll let the images do the talking for this one.  It was a great time (I have fun at all the weddings I shoot) and I’m loving the results that my positive attitude gets me.  I hope you like them too.

On September 24th I had the pleasure of shooting a wedding in Ancaster and Stony Creek.  Amy and Chris started out their day in Ancaster at separate homes like most couples, and we joined Amy at a friends house while she got ready, and met Chris later when we arrived at Liuna Gardens for the ceremony and reception.  The weather was threatening rain that day and it made for a bit of a stressful situation.  When we arrived at Liuna Gardens in Stoney Creek it was overcast and breezy, but it wasn’t actually raining.  As it came time for the ceremony to start though, it started to spit and everyone had doubts that the weather would hold out.  Amy had her heart 100% set on an outdoor wedding and was nearly convinced to move it inside, something she didn’t want to do. Thankfully though the decision was made to have the ceremony outside, and although there was a very light rain the whole time, Amy had her wish of an outdoor wedding fulfilled.  After the ceremony the rain stopped and we were able to continue shooting some awesome portraits and group shots outside. Check out my favourites and let me know what you think!

“One of these things isn’t like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong..”

A couple of weekends ago, on September 11th I had the opportunity to shoot Josh and Bobbi Lynn’s reception. This was a somewhat unique situation because the couple now lives in Georgia and were to be married ahead of this reception date. Bobbi Lynn grew up in Bolton, north of Toronto and so many of her friends and family were going to be unable to make the wedding in Georgia. Hence, the reception at Glen Eagle Golf Club near Bolton was born. It was a nice afternoon reception with lots of good conversation and only a select few tears. Afterwards I took the family out onto the golf course for a few pictures and some good times.

I started off the day shooting details:

And a few tender moments:

Bobbi Lynn’s grandparents were joining in the celebrations, having reached 56 years of marriage!  Quite an achievement and such a wonderful role model for Josh and Bobbi Lynn.

The food was delicious, as evidenced by the fact that I couldn’t even get this picture taken before someone had helped themselves!

The couple did an awesome first dance for everyone to enjoy, and then immediately attempted to cut the cake.  I say attempted because the knife broke because the ice cream cake was still frozen!  You can see the blade flipping in this picture!  No brides or grooms were injured in the making of this photo.

The golf course had maybe the coolest golf cart I’ve ever seen.

We let Bobbi Lynn drive the awesome golf cart, which she ALMOST turned into a game of bumper cars.  She was laughing, I was nervous.

Bobbi Lynn had the idea of climbing into this perfect tree, that had an awesome little perch just for her.  I love it when brides bring creative ideas, it makes my job so much easier!

Then we totally sniped this one golfer’s driver for a quick fun shot.  I love the red shoes peaking out from under the dress!

Before heading off for an evening of partying at a family member’s place, Bobbi Lynn changed into this stunning red dress and we took a few shots to cap off the session.   It was a great afternoon with some awesome people and a sprinkle of warm southern hospitality.   I had a great time.  Josh and Bobbi Lynn, congratulations and good luck!

I had the extreme pleasure of shooting one of my favourite weddings to date on August 28th.  It was an amazing outdoor wedding northwest of Ancaster Ontario on a beautiful farm property.  The groom, Chris is a farmer along with several generations of his family.  One of the most amazing parts of the wedding was the fact that all of the fresh ingredients in the food being served were actually grown on one of the the family’s farms.  The food was amazing along with everything else that caught my attention at this wedding.  I’ll warn everyone now, this is a long post but I loved this wedding so much that I just wanted to share it all with you.

This was our lovely bride Charmaine as she was having her makeup done.

Look at the eye’s on this cutie, what a flower girl!

Charmaine was SUCH a pleasure to work with and was a big part of the reason that this wedding was so wonderful.  It’s great to work with someone that was having so much fun with the entire day.

A pre wedding drink to celebrate and calm the nerves:

The reception was an elegant and welcoming place to be, hosted in a large tent.  I love tent receptions like this.

The bride and groom provided homemade jam for each of their guests to take with them.  It was such a wonderful gesture.

The cake topper had Chris in stitches, at least in part because he farms potatoes.

And then it’s time to party:

Follow the leader leader leader, follow the leader:

Then they even had a fireworks display!

And then some outrageous partying ensued, what a great way to finish the night!

On August 21st I had the pleasure of shooting a beach wedding in Fort Erie Ontario.  John and Karen own a very old home on the beach which they are in the process of renovating.  I have seen the plans for the place and it is going to be nothing short of incredible.  The backyard at this property offered the perfect location to hold their very informal and comfortable reception.  The ceremony was help a few steps away on the beach.  To Karen’s credit she did an incredible job with all the details, everything looked great.

The receptions was set up in a series of cocktail area’s, which was so comfortable and informal.  It really encouraged the guests to mingle and converse more so than most receptions.

We were asked to shoot a lot of candids in a very informal style for this wedding, so we got some great group shots of people simply enjoying themselves:

Then we headed down to the beach for the ceremony:

After the ceremony and some more candids we took John and Karen for a quick portrait session around the house, and then out to the beach.

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Then we had more fun capturing hilarious moments and great details.

One of John’s long time friends gave a very emotional and moving speech about the way John had touched his life when he needed it the most.

The other particularly interesting speech was this one… I’ll leave the rest up to your imaginations.

On Friday I had the extreme pleasure of shooting a beautiful wedding at the McLean House in Toronto.  I assisted Amelia Thornton of Flirt Photography and once again had an absolute blast.  I started out my day out at the family home in Toronto which was absolutely gorgeous.  The boys spent the day hanging out, playing basketball, and enjoying the pool.   I say boys because between their previous marriages, Michael and Tamsen have 5 boys.  So I started off shooting the events of the day, which were a little more relaxed than most of the weddings I shoot.  Next I joined the guys while they got ready at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto which was tons of fun except for finding a parking spot, that proved challenging.  After that I joined Amelia at the McLean House at the Estates of Sunnybrook.  The reception was warm and inviting and Tamsen had done a wonderful job attending to the details, everything went off without a hitch.  So on that note, here are my favourites from the day.

The night ended like this, but let me show you how it began.

Michael definitely had his hands full with 5 boys.  At this moment he wasn’t exactly winning the battle.

The little guy couldn’t help showing off his best jump.  What a cutie.

The house was decorated to perfection.  There were so many awesome little details, but I really liked this clock.

I can’t believe that I got all 5 guys to sit for head shots for me, but they were awesome.  Some of the best behaved kids I’ve run into at a wedding.

The Groom; what a catch. Michael was an awesome guy to work with.

Then I got to meet Tamsen.  What a wonderful woman.  She was confident and composed and just thrilled to be there.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Grenville Pinto!  He played some awesome violin to contemporary music, and he was unreal to watch.  Check out the video at the end of this post.

The whole reception was surrounded by candles which made for a beautiful atmosphere.

Michael’s brother Kevin had quite the speech prepared for the reception, and had Tamsen nearly in tears.  It was very moving.

Here’s a quick video of Grenville doing his thing.  I’m no videographer so please don’t critique that, but check out how cool this guy is!  To find out more about Grenville check out his website at www.gpinto.com

Hello again, today I want to share with you some pictures from a wedding I shot about a week and a half ago.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  The ceremony was held at Parkwood Estates in Oshawa, which happens to be where a good part of Billy Madison was filmed.  You know the huge pool that Billy was always hanging out in?  Yup, Parkwood Estates.  Then we went to the Liberty Grand in downtown Toronto which was a phenominal venue.  I shot this one with Jennifer Fahey and naturally she was wonderful to work with.  I always work with such awesome people, both in terms of the couples and the photographers.  I am a lucky guy in that respect.  But for now, here are the pics.

A few shots of the rings:

The guys getting ready.  A beer or two helps ease the tension of a stressful day:

It took the guys about half an hour to figure out how to pin on the flowers.  To be honest I was no help, I’m going to have to practice this!

The ceremony was small and quiant, but beautiful nonetheless on the outdoor grounds of the Parkwood Estates:

They are laughing so hard in this pictures because the guys had spent FOREVER trying to get those flowers to stay put, and sure enough, when he bent over to sign the marriage licence it fell off.

Such a stunning bridal party:

I loved the colours at the reception, so bright and vibrant.  The brown table clothes were a nice change from the standard white.