Kristina & Liam || Wedding Postponement Session

As mentioned in my first post about these sessions - I came up with Wedding Postponement Sessions for my clients because we needed a few silver linings.

I thought that by visually marking the occasion of original wedding dates we’re acknowledging and celebrating the tough decisions that couples are making together. In my own personal experience, these types of moments in life are what create stronger bonds, give greater depth to our connections, and lead us to appreciate the joy and gratitude that arises.

Kristina & Liam were originally getting married this coming November of this year. Because we did a winter engagement session, I thought we could take advantage of my recent time in Ottawa (for a wedding) and the summer weather (given that they’re wedding is postponed to next November). We landed on Mont St-Marie, where Liam has a family cottage that they can escape to.

The pandemic, they told me, has not been easy for them. Adapting to work-at-home and isolation was already proving difficult, when Kristina’s grandfather went into the hospital unexpectedly. Sadly,

We weren't able to visit or speak to him until his final days, and on May 3 he passed. This was especially difficult for both of us - as he was the person that raised me, and who was going to walk me down the aisle, and who I had hoped to have my father-daughter dance with. After dealing with such a large loss already, the idea of having a wedding when the grief was still so fresh, and in needing to adjust our expectations for our perfect day (we don't think we'd be allowed to have any where near our guest count, for example), it didn't feel right to move forward with our date.

Postponing for them meant also delaying a celebration of the challenges they had gone through together. The good news is that these two adore each other and if anything, strengthened their love for each other.

Kristina says of Liam:

He's always so positive, about everything (a glass half-full kind of guy).

And when I asked Liam for one of the things he loved about Kristina, he laughed and said:

Everything

Instead of a celebrating with a wedding this year, Liam took to making a fire with a few firestarter cubes (because hasn’t this year been challenging enough??). There is such a marked difference in the summer heat wave when you drive up to the Gatineau Hills, a fire is welcome! I got to know these two even better over a lot of laughter and getting creative in creating photographs that acknowledge the time they had in the summer of the 2020 pandemic.

Mer Bleue Winter Engagement

One of the first things I noticed when I met Kristina and Liam was just how contagious their laughter is and how much they make each other laugh. This was a delightful engagement session where we finally got to meet and explore their story a little more just a couple days after Valentine’s Day and with a stroke of luck, missed out on the deep freeze normal to February. The other fun “news” of the weekend was their recent addition to their new home, Yogi Bear, who was immediately full of puppy greetings, love bites, and snuggles.

As a story-teller, I want to create a story of images that are meaningful to the couple. Liam’s passion is in woodworking, so incorporating some of his pieces (ever so subtly) into some of the photographs, along with their custom made engagement ring felt significant to me. Also, Kristina had shared that one of her favorite colors was pink, so I picked up some of my favorite ribbon made locally here in Montreal at Maison Note and gifted it to her to use in some way for her wedding.

We headed to the Mer Bleue Bog, the significance being that this was where Liam had proposed to Kristina (and funnily enough, I got to see that happen over IG because they had hired me for their wedding before they were officially engaged. I mean… these two make me laaaaaugh, they’re so fun and up for fun.)

So here you go, a winter engagement session in Ottawa at the Mer Bleue Bog. Really looking forward to photographing their wedding this November!

Engagement Photography: The Best of 2019

The best way to think of an engagement sessions & couples sessions is as a unique date between you and your partner. If you think about it: how many photographs do you have with each other that are not directly taken with your iPhone? Printed and framed?

One of my own regrets is that I don’t have more photographs with Dave, with me in them. Here’s why: before I turned 35 I completely took my looks for granted and was hypercritical of them. I don’t know if I thought I would never age, but now I look back at younger versions of myself and want to jump inside that photograph and give myself a swift kick in the kindest way haha!

It’s important to have these photographs with each other so that you can appreciate your beautiful selves and all that that encompasses with aspirations, romance, joie de vivre. Not that I am saying that I don’t feel those things now! But I don’t take them for granted anymore.

Engagement photography sessions are an opportunity to tell a more intimate story, to get yourselves photographed in a more elevated and artistic way. Engaged or not engaged, if you’re a couple that’s looking to have your photograph taken: go on over this page to find out more about what these sessions entail and take a moment to fill out the questionnaire!

Here is a selection of my favorite engagement photographs that I took in 2019 in various locations in Montreal and Ottawa.