And the problem with taking so long to post about a past wedding is that I don’t remember much to write about. Lisa and Edward’s was definitely one of my favorites to shoot. It was really intimate and beautiful. They didn’t care about throwing a huge party/reception aftwards, which is rare nowadays. They just wanted to gather all the loved ones to celebrate this important day at church.

After the ceremony, we had a delicious lunch and drove to the Bluffer’s park for some portraits. It was pretty windy and cold, but they came out gorgeous!! We had a bit of sunshine for about 2 min and with that tiny amount of time I got my favorite wedding image from last year. You’ll see when you scroll down (it’s also on my portfolio). Love that place.

Congrats, Lisa and Edward! Wishing you all the best in your life. :)

I thought things were supposed to slow down during this time of the year, as they always do, but I’ve never been so busy. Lots of family photo shoots – so thanks everybody for sharing your pictures and talking about me. :)

If you’re here often, you’ll remember these two from a Distillery District E-Session. Rachelle and Levente got married last August at a stunning farm in Marsville.

The forecast was for rain, but it was pretty sunny all day long. We had some really heavy clouds throughout the whole day, so one minute everything was gray and windy and then all of sudden we had the brightest sun on our faces! I’m not kidding – I never changed my ISO and shutter speed so much in a matter of minutes. Tough day to be shooting outside, but I made it and I’m extremely proud of the outcome. We’ve got some amazing images to share – my favorite one is definitely the last one, where Levente’s little nephew is pointing to the stars in the sky as the night falls.

Congrats, Rachelle and Levente! :)

It was cute watching them. Since our e-session, I felt like I was shooting a high school couple. You know when you’re in high school and you have the biggest crush on someone and your eyes just sparkle when you look at that person? That’s how they look at each other! I think it’s pretty noticeable from the pictures.

They got married in a gorgeous church 5 minutes away from my house (that’s a first!) and then we went for the portraits. At first, they were thinking of doing portraits before the ceremony, but Brandon really wanted to first see Aileen in her white dress walking down the aisle. We still had time for some amazing portraits at the Trafalgar Castle School and around the Lake House, however I really wished we had time to go to the beach. :( If you’re reading this, Brandon & Aileen, how about a Trash the Dress photo shoot in the future?? :))

Congrats, Brandon and Aileen!

#1 You must love the photographer’s work (or at least like a whole lot): if you can’t go through the photographer’s blog posts (it doesn’t matter if it’s wedding related or not), this means he/she is not the right photographer for you;
#2 You must get along with your photographer: that’s why we should ALWAYS meet up before signing any agreements. I’ve been trying really hard to schedule meetings with ample time to chat about all your big day’s details, but sometimes that’s just not possible, especially if you want to meet during weekends. So the best thing is to schedule a meeting during the weekdays – otherwise you might get the impression I’m in a rush to end the meeting (on weekends, I usually squeeze meetings between photo shoots).
#3 Rates that fit your budget: you can check out my starting rates on the top menu – if I was the bride, I wouldn’t really like photographers that do not post their rates on their website. I just think it saves time for both of us.

Noor considered all these 3 things above when booking me. She was having a South Asian wedding and was not concerned at all that I wasn’t a photographer that just shot Indian/Pakistani weddings; she said she liked all my blog posts because I was able to capture amazing moments, so thank you Noor, for trusting my work. We got along so well that by the end of our meeting we were talking cosmetics and girly stuff. :)

Noor and Omar’s henna party/wedding this past August was filled with color, singing, dancing and emotion. What more can I ask for? Let me share a few images with you.

Congrats, Noor and Omar! It was a pleasure shooting your big day. :)

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! :)