Wedding Post Masterlist

Going through the archives I found a few wedding posts that made it up on Light a Candle but were never posted here, I thought that, as a retrospective, I would set up a master post for easy navigation.

Engagement
- Announcement 
- Story
- The Ring 
- Engagement Photos with Genevieve Renee Photographie  1 2 3

Planning  
Liability 
Confections (food for a cocktail and desert reception)
Decor 
Venue and Save the Dates
Photographers

11 Months

6 Months
5 Months
4 Months

2 Months 

Purchases 1 2 3  4

DIY's 

Florals

Self Tanning for Brides 

Han and Leia Star Wars Wedding Printables 

Pinata Making

Dress Shopping 

Inspiration

1

The Shopping Experience
1 2 3 4

The Dress



Wedding
The rehearsal  
The Morning of the Wedding  

Wedding Photos on A Practical Wedding

Last year while I was planning our wedding there was one website that became rather essential. A Practical Wedding is a wealth of inspiration, knowledge and advice and I also immensely enjoyed the book of the same name written by Meg Keene, editor-in-chief.

I've been dying to share wedding photos on the blog, but was waiting for them to be posted elsewhere!

After our photos came back I wanted to submit our wedding to my favorite resource and my patience has been rewarded today as our wedding has finally been posted! It feels pretty good to see us up there, and of course my ego doesn't mind all the kind comments. I hope that someone sees our post and is inspired to hire one of our amazing vendors (Genevieve Renee Photographie, Amy Robertson Makeup for example), or try a pink dress. ;)

If you want to check out the post, you can find it on their website here!

Engagement Photos: 3

Third and last set of engagement photos taken by lovely lady Genevieve Renee Photographie. Genevieve was so sweet taking one more round of photos with another outfit change. ;) I really love these ones.

Originally when we were planning our budget we didn't plan on having an engagement session at all, but I'm so glad that we decided to do it. For us, it was a chance to meet Genevieve since she was in Calgary and we had only chatted on Skype, but the result is something we'll surely treasure for many years to come.

Engagement Photos: 2

The second set from our engagement session. This is the set I think brings out our personalities the most. I laughed out loud when I saw some of these pictures and I treasure them even more because they show how much fun we have together.

This set also shows some of the fun we have at the cabin! The gnome is special because it was my grandmothers. My grandparents had an acreage for many years and my cousins, sister and I spent our childhood playing up there and enjoying the land. My memory of my grandparents is so tied to that place. My parents buying this piece of land and plopping a cabin on it was very much a tribute to my grandparents, this land ties us back to those memories.

Of course, many many thanks again to our photographer Genevieve, of Genevieve Renee Photographie.

 

 

 

 

The picture above is my absolute favorite. When Nick was "courting me" haha, we would sit together and he would play me music. He learned all my favorite songs even though he's more of a Red Hot Chili Peppers guy and I'm more of a Dallas Green kinda lady.

Engagment Photos: 1

 At the beginning of October Nick and I had the utmost pleasure of meeting our wedding photographer, Genevieve, of Genevieve Renee Photographie, at my parents cabin for an engagement portrait session!

I knew the pictures would be stunning, but I could not have predicted just how stunning. Genevieve is supremely talented! She not only captured our personalities in two hours, she also captured the spirit of our little family cabin, and somehow made the colours and textures of fall more beautiful than they were when I was standing there looking at them with my own eyes. Haha.

Having our photos at the cabin really meant a lot to me, and Genevieve drove two hours from Calgary and found us in the middle of nowhere even though she had never met us and her poor husband was worried she might be murderized. I am so so grateful, and even more excited to work with her again on our wedding day.

I did two wardrobe changes on the day, haha, so I'll be breaking up the photos into three posts and just posting my absolute favorites.

Again, Genevieve Renee Photographie. Thank you so much!

 

 

Nick is wearing the Everlane mens V Tee, I am wearing an ASOS dress and knee highs, American Eagle sweater and H&M Chelsea Boots. 

Photographers

We looked at a lot of them.

People are constantly telling us "get this person to do it" or "this person will do it for cheap!" but not being interested in having someone cheaply shoot our wedding on the Canon Rebel they just bought from Costco, I insisted on meeting with several photographers who's work impressed me and met my aesthetic!

First of all, for a guy who apparently couldn't care less about capturing memories of the most expensive day of our lives (he literally said he didn't care about the photos, "they just get stuffed in a box to never be looked at again right?" LOL), Nick was an absolute prince charming throughout the consultation process. Once he got it in his head we were going to be spending a quarter of our wedding budget on photos he took to meeting everyone, and being a supportive future groom like a duck takes to a pond -- graciously and with verve. I felt really supported by him.

Secondly, there are a lot of talented photographers among our family and friends and I don't want my Rebel crack to be misconstrued. I really wanted a photographer who has a lot of experience shooting weddings specifically, who would know how to get us out of our shells and direct us to get the best photos possible, and again, who fits a specific compositional and post processing aesthetic. Not only that, but I wasn't interested in having our friends and family busy taking pictures instead of living in the moment! Haha, I'm even considering making it an 'unplugged' wedding where everyone is asked to turn off their cell phones at the door.

Anyway, we contacted six photographers or photography companies, and met with three.

Our top three were:

• Diamond Cake Photography

•  Jessica Fern Facette 

•  And Genevieve Renee Photographie 

All three of them are absolute artists and I'm a huge fan of all of their hard work and dedication to shooting amazing weddings.

In the end we decided to go with Genevieve, for a few key reasons. First of all, when we chatted with her she kept it light and informal, and genuinely seemed to want to hear all about our wedding plans. Not only did we spill everything to her, but she started immediately coming up with ideas as to how to shoot our wedding, timelines that would work best, even decor tips. She was just so knowledgeable and  there wasn't a single moment when we were stuck as to what to say next. She prompted us along and always knew exactly what to say. That kind of intuitiveness really showed her professionalism and experience to us. We ended the call (she's from Calgary so we chatted over Skype) feeling like she would know exactly how to shoot our wedding. I could envision her having the same intuitiveness when  she's shooting with us, knowing exactly what to say to make us smile, and what shots to take to make us happy. That's what I wanted.

I would highly suggest any of these talented local photographers, one thing I kept saying was that I had no idea before starting our search how many extremely talented professionals we had at our fingertips. It made deciding very difficult for us.

If I could share one tip with people about choosing a photographer I would say choose someone who you click with on a personal level. That's maybe not the most practical advise, and yes, we also love her photography, but the biggest deciding factor ended up being  -- this is someone who I wouldn't mind having at my wedding as a friend and a guest, this is someone who I think will reduce stress on the day, rather then add it, and who will be professional and also have fun!