From this wedding, my favorite parts were definitely speeches – after going to so many weddings, I already know that MOST of the best men get their speeches from the Internet. Same old jokes, can’t laugh at that anymore. But this time the best man speech brought tears to my ears. Actually, ALL speeches. I’m just talking about the best man in particular because it’s rare to hear something actually nice and emotional from guys. I loved every single part of the day, but the reception was the spotlight. People were really having fun!! (sometimes dinner is so long it gets a bit boring – I can’t take pictures of people eating!!)

Congrats, Bryan and Pareesa! Wishing you a lifetime of happiness. :)

Fabrice wrote Jennifer 12 – yes, TWELVE!! – love letters during the past year, one for each month. We had the chance to read one since they decided to share its content during their vows. I couldn’t stop crying – good thing my camera is always in front of my face, so nobody notices!

Then, during the speeches, we learn that Fabrice, as a kid, reenacted the whole Disney’s Aladdin movie – including songs! – to his sister since she couldn’t watch the actual movie. Isn’t that the cutest thing you’ve ever heard?? I’m a huge Disney fan (for a period of time I even was a cast member but had to gave up on that since I understand that I’m much better as a guest), so for me, that’s actually the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.

Now talking about the wedding – this was so much fun. Jennifer definitely chose an unique location for their portraits: The Art Shoppe! When she told me about her plan, I thought that was extremely creative but I was a bit worried about all the price tags and how we would deal with some of the furniture around the store. Turns out that the staff was beyond nice and helped us hiding price tags and even moving furniture around. I just love the pictures – The light of the store made the pictures came out so dramatic! While I was editing I was thinking, “man, this looks like a movie poster!”. Loved them! Can’t wait to publish my next blog post so I can move them to my portfolio!!

Jen looked STUNNING! Interesting that before their E-Session they talked to me about being worried about not being photogenic, but as you can see, they have nothing to worry about! Such a cute couple. Loved her dress, the hair, her place (yeah, that has nothing to do with the wedding, but it gave the pictures a nice background) everything! That girl has an incredible good taste. I also have to say that the entire bridal party was really into the wedding. I wish I could post all pictures here, got to capture some really nice images because of them. They were SO upbeat!

Congrats, Jen and Fabrice! Wishing you a lifetime of happiness. :)

p.s.: Their last names and the license plate from the Jeep were intentionally removed out of the images for this post.

I don’t know if anybody noticed, but most of my Portfolios start with an image of hands, feet, etc. It’s intentional – I think it’s kind of neutral and I actually love photographing details. I’ve been using the same picture for a couple of years now, but I think I finally found a good replacement. :)

So this is Lena and Mohamad’s wedding – it’s actually their reception since I did not shoot their ceremony that took place in the US! They got ready together, headed to Glendon College for some portraits and then it was all about dancing all night long!

One really romantic thing about the two of them: their moms were best friends from a long long time ago and they actually met when they were BABIES!! Isn’t that cute?! They became friends during their teens, fell in love and the rest is history. That is so sweet, just loved that story.

That was ALMOST the case with Maria and Dimitri. On our first meeting, Maria did all the talking and Dimitri was really quiet. So I must say I was quite impressed during our E-Session. He was so nice, always listening carefully to my directions so we could make amazing images for them to keep. Also, he never complained about being tired of taking pictures (guys usually do that)! The photos came out so nice I wish I could post them all here! Although it was really hard to make her laugh, there’s something about her eyes that say so much! At that moment I just knew her wedding pictures would turned out great and here are some for you to see. A LOT of emotion going on!

Talking about the actual wedding, they had the cutest bridal party EVER!! You’ll see what I’m talking about when you get to scroll down the page.

These two are a perfect match! I truly wish them a lifetime of happiness – Maria and Dimitri are both wonderful people. I was impressed with how they got along so well with their little nieces and nephews… they need to become parents soon! :)

Anyways… while I still have those links, please visit both Sash and Satin and Toronto Mom Now to view a bit of my work. :)

The wedding was in my home country, Brazil, and although weddings over there are starting to look a lot like the ones we have here, you’ll notice a lot of different things: wedding bands usually match and they are actually given when you get engaged – so yeah, there’s no diamond ring (awesome if you’re a guy)! There are no bridesmaids as well and no pause for portraits. So there’s no waiting between ceremony and reception – I know nowadays everybody is doing the “reveal” thing so they can have the reception right after the ceremony, but over there there’s something called “day after” photo shoot where the bride and groom take their portraits the day after the wedding. It’s a new thing and not everybody does it. Honestly, I prefer the north american way where everything happens in one day. I must admit that when I first started here I thought that was a bit weird leaving guests waiting for the reception.

Even though we were not able to schedule a day for their portraits since they were leaving for their honeymoon right after the wedding (and I was coming back to Canada!), we have some amazing pictures to share and I’m pretty much sure they will make a beautiful album anyways! :)

Then, when I get to Dan’s house, his computer (or iPod, whatever) is playing Britpop. I mean, who really listens to Some Might Say in 2012? I do! Their place was filled with things I like as well… and whoever gave them a book and quoted Michael Scott is also really cool. :P

I loved her bouquet – she decided to go for tulips… my favorite! It was really fun to shoot a couple that has so much in common with me (except for Justin Bieber – and no… I won’t be explaining that here). Let me share with you some of my favorite pictures – originally I intended to post over 60 images, but that’s just too many for a single blog post… so compromising pictures of the Biebs with some guests will be left out of this post. ;)

As I said before, every wedding is unique and what I loved about this one is that Stephen brought their dog to the ceremony! It was a surprise to Tara and you can definitely see that they were able to keep it a secret – just look at Tara’s reaction when she sees her dog. Isn’t it an “awww” moment? :)

They get bonus points for not playing I Gotta A Feeling from the Black Eyed Peas during the reception. I have nothing against it and I can definitely see why it’s played in every single wedding I’ve been to for the past couple of years. However it would be interesting if another song came out to replace that one! ;)

I remember using A LOT of vintage effects to all my pictures. But after I gave birth to Melody and started taking pictures of her, I wanted to see them as they really were. I still love black & white (and that’s not really vintage for me), but I just don’t wanna see a picture of her that looks like it was taken in the 50’s. Do I still apply those effects to my clients pictures? Yes – because sometimes that effect really works to some images, but I’m doing it way less.

I’m pretty sure many of you that read my blog noticed that change. My brother-in-law actually was one of the first that noticed. I remember posting an E-Session on my Facebook Fan Page last year, a couple of months after I had my baby, and he said, “Did you change your style?”, and I just said, “No, of course not!”… but he was right. I just didn’t realize at that time.

I just hope my clients from my vintage days still like my work so I can take their pictures when they have babies! :)

So this is Mruna and Kamal’s wedding. I’m so lucky to be able to capture weddings from many cultures and I must say I really enjoy Indian weddings – they are so colorful!! Their reception was full of entertainment – they had professional singers, dancers… speeches were very emotional too – that day I could see how Mruna and Kamal are wonderful people.

Anyways, enough about me. This is Ray and Jennifer. As you might notice, we had this photo session a while ago, since Jennifer would obviously not be able to wear that dress during winter! It was already pretty cold when we shot this, but the images turned out amazing. These are actually their pre-wedding images and they are getting married this February.

January has been a quiet month for me, but my weekends next month are all booked! It was good to take some time off but I can’t wait to start shooting again!

p.s.: I don’t know if anybody noticed, but I removed that tree from my website background. Finally got tired of it! If you’re still seeing it, it might be still in your cache memory; try refreshing the page. If it’s still there after doing that, don’t worry, what really matters are the pictures. :)