Wow!  It’s been a while since we’ve done back-to-back weddings.  Right after Liz & Damian’s wedding we headed up to Red Deer for Micaela & Jeremy’s.  While we were shooting Micaela’s sister asked how we knew about all the locations we used if we weren’t from Red Deer.  The answer is short but the process is somewhat time-consuming.  We explore…A lot.  Kevan and I were commenting on a recent trip how it’s actually one of the great parts of the job because it takes us to places that we probably would never go otherwise.  The flip-side is, sometimes it takes us places we probably shouldn’t go (backcountry roads, rickety old buildings, etc!).

If you’re a regular here, you’ll recall that we were in Red Deer a few weekends ago for some engagement sessions (Cristal & Brad’s and Joni & Jason’s) and, since we knew we weren’t going to have a chance to scout when we got into town on Saturday night, we took the opportunity while we were there to pick some spots we wanted to use with Micaela & Jeremy.

Here’s what we came up with.

Well, last weekend we had two weddings and the first was one of our favourite kinds – a small, intimate affair full of close friends and family. It also represented our first wedding at the Hyatt Hotel, located in downtown Calgary, which was great. After the wedding ceremony we went out with the wedding party and wandered Stephen Ave and some of the alleys right nearby. When were finished with that we actually did some shooting inside the hotel and the Telus Convention Centre. I will never get tired of shooting weddings here in the amazing vistas of Fernie, but it is fun and challenging for us to change it up every so often. Elizabeth and Damian were great – they gave us the freedom to chase the light and do some exploring. We always joke that we are a little ADD with our clients (very easily distracted by light) and they got to see that in full force! But they were happy to be together and to let us do our thing.

Both of us met Joni at the University of Lethbridge as we all hung out in the same circles. Even though we all went our own separate ways after university we kept in touch from time to time and we were excited when we got a call from Joni earlier this summer letting us know she was getting married. It’s crazy how after years of not seeing someone you can just pick up where you left off. That’s exactly how it was when we met up with Joni and Jason for their engagement session.

We did their engagement session on her great aunt & uncle’s farm west of Red Deer. While we weren’t sure what to expect not having seen the location prior, it turned out to be a great spot – some interesting old buildings, some cool trees, and almost perfect afternoon light.

For some reason Jason always wanted to stick his tongue out at the camera.  I gave him fair warning and told him that if I caught it in a picture it would go up on the blog.  We also got one of Joni that you can see on our Facebook Fan Page but that was a shot specifically requested for her.  :)

We have a wedding in Red Deer this weekend, so Duane and I wanted to get up to refresh ourselves on some potential locations by doing a little bit of scouting. We also used the opportunity to meet up with Cristal and Brad, who are having their wedding out at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort later this summer, to do their engagement session.

Besides being excited about being able to shoot on top of a mountain, we are also really excited about working with Cristal and Brad! Cristal was in the wedding party for Jenn and Mick last fall, and had a pretty good idea of how we shoot, and the approach we bring to a wedding day. Brad brought along his car that he has had since he was a teenager. It was fun working it into a few of the shots! We haven’t done the parking garage thing for a little while. Probably because there aren’t a lot of them in Fernie…

Whew – what a weekend!  We went on a little bit of a road trip to meet up with a few couples with upcoming weddings for their engagement sessions, drove most of Red Deer scouting locations for a wedding next weekend, and managed to tack on a day of biking in Invermere on the way home!

Our first engagement session was in Calgary with Amber and Arin and we headed up to SAIT to do some shooting.  Things have really changed on campus since we were there last!  Amber and Arin probably got a few chuckles out of us because there were so many great locations to use and it probably seemed like we had A.D.D. moving from one spot to the next.  It was one of those sessions were we both really felt we had a great connection with them and that we were just hanging out and snapping a few pictures along the way.  We’re definitely looking forward to the opportunity to get together with them again later this summer at their wedding.