Calgary Wedding Photographer - Downtown Wedding Engagements
Marrying Your Best Friend
Marrying your best friend should be easy peasy, right? Well, it is but if you are going to plan a wedding to marry them, it will be a little more complicated than that? Honestly, saying I do, will be the easiest decision you make but there will be a lot of big and small decisions along the way until that actual day comes.
What to do after you say, yes to the proposal? You tell your families and friends and the excitement is everywhere you look. The next step is to decide what kind of wedding you both will want to celebrate your love. Don’t be discouraged if you need to modify this picture in your mind several times. There will be a lot of factors that will come into view that will determine what this will look like.
Recently I attended the Calgary’s Wedding Fair down at the BMO Centre. While I was there, there was a booth set up for newly engaged couples by Megan Sawchuck and her booth was brilliant. It consistently of asked this question over and over, what kind of bride or groom are you? Every subsequent question helped narrowed down choices until the couple could decide which kind they were. This would then help them choose what time of year to get married, the best venue for them, what their style was and how many people they should have in attendance. It was amazing to see couples ask blunt questions and get a clear answer to what they actual like versus what they thought they should do for their wedding day.
Here is what I have found can be helpful for all newly engaged couples who are planning on having a wedding to celebrate from a photographers’ perspective.
The venue really matters, more than you realize. (It will be in all of your photos unless you leave to take some portraits thorough the day. While I love to pretend I am a photo ninja, I am not a photo god. I cannot make the venue look better than it is, I can only shoot your images tighter to not showcase your ugly venue option. I am limited to your choices because your wedding is not a styled shoot.)
The lighting on your day can determine the entire mood of your photos. (So, choose to be intentional and ensure you have a professional who can capture multiple lighting situations as the day evolves. Furthermore, talk to your photographer about what you envision and then create the vision with professionals to make it come to life.)
Don’t cheap out on getting your look right. (Invest in what you wear, your hair, nails and makeup) I have personally seen folks do their own hair and then hated it all day long because it didn’t hold up like they anticipated.
Do the damn engagement portraits! Stop trying to save a buck and practice having your photos taken unless you are skilled models.
Have backup plans for everything unless you genuinely don’t care about the outcome. The biggest secret I can tell you about having your day flow effortlessly and it feels organically is because it was highly over-planned and there were multiple backup plans in place. It really does take a team to create an event that has a natural relax cadence.
Speaking of taking engagement portraits, here are some from a recent fall outdoor and indoor locations in downtown Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Melika & Ali’s wedding engagements were fun, stylish and unforgetable for all three of us. I wanted to showcase them to show you, you need your wedding engagements to get ready for your big wedding day. These two are the most lovely of people but they too needed to practice and see how they photographed. Their wedding will be a destination wedding and now we all three know how they naturally sit together, hold each other and how they can look really good alone and, or together. There were moments during our session I had to show them, oh my word for the love of god, don’t do that facial expression. Because after all they can’t see what I see and I am there to guide them to look and feel their best always.
