Elopement, Winter Wedding, Wedding Annabelle Agnew Elopement, Winter Wedding, Wedding Annabelle Agnew

Leila & Eduardo || Manoir Hovey Winter Elopement

Leila & Eduardo met one night on opposing charade teams at a party in grad school that they attended in Texas. Leila says

We quickly discovered we have very similar taste in movies and started talking more … It always fascinates us to think that E's originally from Mexico, L from the Philippines, we met in Texas, got married in Quebec and settling down in Toronto!

Eduardo says that what he loves about Leila is

that she is very thoughtful about health and she's always improving her dessert/food recipes to make them healthier and tastier (and I didn't think that could go together). She is very intelligent and always encourages me to be the best version of myself.

Leila & Eduardo reached out to me looking for a way to have a very Canadian, read: very winter & mountains, wedding on Valentine’s Day, which is a very special day to them.

Originally they had wanted to get married in Banff, Alberta, which as serendipity would have it, I had some experience with as I had lived there after I graduated from highschool for two years working as a waitress. (And incidentally worked with Naomi before she started Mountain Events ).

After some brainstorming, we landed on one of my favorite hotels and I directed them to Elyna Kudish to help them finalize all the beautiful details of their wedding day.

Ceremony and celebration wise, Elyna Kudish pretty much took care of everything. We had an initial convo of what we had in mind and it was a breeze since then. We'd video call and email regularly to iron out details. Definitely one of our most loved aspect of our wedding --- No stress.

The only hard part is not being able to have our family and friends over since they're from overseas. However, rather than fussing out about these travel details (which, admittedly we spent quite some time on), we ultimately decided just have a separate and more informal celebration later on with them.

And what a beautiful wedding day it was! It really goes to show that even with a curfew under red alert, in frigid temperatures, “love is not cancelled”.

Last little bit of info before I sign off here, Leila & Eduardo went off to Les Terrasses Cap a L’Aigle for their Honeymoon, a suggestion I gave them based on my great experience there after photographing Gabrielle & LP’s micro wedding over the summer. I really loved how open they were to suggestions and for enjoying every moment of it, which I think you can tell in these photos :)

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Couples, Wedding Annabelle Agnew Couples, Wedding Annabelle Agnew

Grace & Toni || Cafe De L'Horloge Wedding

This wedding was featured on Junebug Weddings.

Grace & Toni met at a faith-based campus group at McGill. Grace says they connected

over the fact that we could talk for ages which we discovered while dissecting a book we had both read. We bonded also over being international students with surprisingly similar family backgrounds, in spite of having been brought up in Nigeria and Qatar. I noticed  how kind Toni was, how comfortable he was in himself, and his sense of humor and love for games;

Toni said “and I loved how compassionate Grace was (and still is), her wit, and incredible sense of style”

When I started talking to Grace & Toni, they had been planning a wedding for some time, and were struggling to find a venue that could accommodate a celebration uniting both of their large families that would be traveling from overseas.

What follows is what we all now know this year: the upheaval of the pandemic, the uncertainty built into planning anything, and then taking a chance and planning it anyway. As Grace told me,

Having to plan during the pandemic gave us the time and space to discern what mattered to us on our wedding day. It was fun (in the midst of the disappointment and stress) to be creative and  brainstorm within the restrictions and see plans take shape. It’s been hard having to miss some of the family traditions we had planned in both Nigeria and India this year. Thankfully our family has been virtually involved in the planning process, but, we have missed their physical presence and support here, and especially on the wedding day, we will miss Toni’s parents and other precious friends and family being with us in person. 

I can not stress enough just how swiftly Salar Events & Design switched gears in light of going into orange alert the week of their wedding (change of venue, disinviting more guests, adding a hotel to get ready in, pivoting and giving away decor etc.) and found a new accommodating space thanks to Yasmine at Cafe de L’Horloge in Rigaud. The vendor teams really pulled together to make this day happen so please make a note of them below! I must also give a shout out to the videographer, Plea, for pulling off technical wizardry in connecting Grace & Toni to their families attending from overseas via streaming services.

It was a beautiful day at the end of September — one of those days that did it’s best to feel like summer — and, well, I’ll let the photos do the rest of the storytelling :)

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Annabelle Agnew Annabelle Agnew

Nadia & Gerlando || Wedding Postponement

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.

Nadia & Gerlando had originally planned a small wedding in September. And while they had tried to stay optimistic about having it, they realized the pandemic had touched so many in so many ways. In the end, they decided to move it (to as of yet decided new date) when things feel a little more predictable.

The hardest part for them?

What we had envisioned was slowly becoming tangible. We got attached to that day and now (we had to) accept that it wouldn't happen (and) then having to go over it with everyone…

As we have all noticed, there have been silver linings to this year, in the face of all the uncertainty.

For Nadia, during the pandemic she said of Gerlando:

He is so sweet! Every morning, he would make my coffee, bring me breakfast and made sure I was comfortable. He knew I wanted to start making bread and growing veggies ( I know, how original lol) so he participated and ended up taking over the projects!

Gerlando says of Nadia:

She is very sweet, very funny, make me smile everyday it's never boring with her! She's very patient and understand all my flaws. She always have those out of the box idea... she's wild !!!

I took a stroll with Nadia and Gerlando up the mountain from the Musee Des Beaux-Arts. When I am navigating engagement-like sessions in the city, my priorities are to make it visually compelling and fun, but also that there is a chance for privacy. We are not easily intimate in public — adding a camera into that equation often makes all of us all giddy. Having distractions of traffic & passersby is inevitable but I try to reduce that amount as much as possible so that we have the freedom to be more ourselves when we feel less on display.

When I found these stairs the day before, I was shocked… all this time living in Montreal (and downtown for much of my 20s!) and still so much to uncover. It turned out that Nadia and Gerlando were very familiar with these steps — having used to run up them together at lunch. It felt like a small moment of serendipity. I love those moments and I love the results of this session.

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