In the week leading up to Jandy and Chad’s wedding this summer, all it did was downpour with rain. While most people dream of having nice weather on their wedding day, things were not looking good. Despite the forecast, wedding-weather-dreams came to life as the skies cleared into a gorgeous blue that set the stage for a beautiful and sunny ocean side wedding. The wedding-weather fairies weren’t the only fairies busy that day, it turned out that the tooth fairies had to be called in as well! Jandy’s daughter, Asia, lost one of her front teeth just before the ceremony on the morning of the wedding! Being worried about how she would look, especially in the photographs, she made a quick adjustment and started smiling again- this time with her mouth closed:) The rest of the day went great, all the time and planning came together to produce a super summer wedding in Parksville at Tigh Na Mara Resort. Congratulations Jandy and Chad!
Pretty Filippa Scott wedding heals and wedding dress from Bisou Bridal.
Jandy looked gorgeous in her Parisian wedding dress and Chad looked fantastic in his well styled cream suit.
One of the unique details they had planned, was to have an extra special ring-bearer. They weren’t sure if she would walk straight down the aisle to meet Chad, but she did and with a great big smile and her tail wagging proudly! Sydney is Chad’s best friend and a beautiful Golden Retriever.
Best man, Chad’s brother, helping out.
Moments after their ceremony!!!
Kids being kids! 🙂
Such a beautiful bouquet!
When we first met up with Louise we were pleased to hear her Manchester accent. hyperfocus UK was set up in Manchester by us in 2004 and we were based there for almost three years shooting lots of amazing weddings in Northern England and Scotland. We really fell in love with Manchester and the people, so hearing Louise’s accent brought back all the warm friendly memories of being in the UK. We were off to a good start!
Louise was excited about her ‘surprise’ wedding to Dean, of course it was to be a surprise for the guests, not for Dean:) The plan was that the two of them were to travel through Italy for a couple of weeks before the wedding and they would tell their friends and family that they were going to Italy to get married, but that they would have a reception party in Vancouver when they got back.
A few days after they returned from Italy they had a party in the lovely reception space above the Stanley Park Chapel, hors d’oeuvres, Cupcakes, and drinks were being served and guests were chatting and mingling, suspecting nothing out of the ordinary. Dean was playing host while Louise was, unbeknownst to the guests, in the bridal suite downstairs getting ready. About half an hour after the party was underway Dean went onto the mezzanine of the reception area and announced that everyone should go downstairs. There were some confused looks, but people politely finished their drinks and made their way downstairs.
Once the group had moved downstairs they were taken into the Chapel and seated, and wow, were they confused now!! Dean stood at the front and made the surprise announcement; that he and Louise had actually not been married in Italy and that the real wedding was going to happen right there, right now! All the guests were shocked, surprised and excited!! It was a total surprise!!
A few minutes later Louise made her entry in a gorgeous dress that she designed herself and stunning Venetian shoes; the wedding was underway! It was a friendly and casual ceremony by Rev. Allan Burnett followed by a horse and carriage ride through Stanley Park (that we photographed using a Bicycle for transport, click here for details) and then a party back in the reception area of the Stanley Park Chapel. Everyone had a super evening and danced the night away while the fireworks went off over English bay.
Congratulations Dean and Louise and what a creative and fun ‘Surprise Wedding’ !!!
hyperfocus wedding photography Gets A Little Greener!!!
An environmentally conscious outlook can reach all aspects of your wedding planning, including your selection of a wedding photographer. The two of us have always led a pretty environmentally conscious existence, it’s just what we do. It’s not usually something we go around telling people about. I suppose living in the Commercial Drive neighborhood of Vancouver, it’s easy to forget that not everyone uses a push mower to cut the lawn, makes a conscious choice to ride a bicycle or skateboard (instead of a car) and likes to buy both local and organic foods. Anyhow, I also suppose it is not so surprising that our mind set would spill over into our business too. With that said, we did recently have had a couple of things happen at hyperfocus that we felt were noteworthy on the ‘Green’ front; both to do with transportation.
The first item our Green transportation initiative involved our first ever wedding photographed using a bicycle for transporting us and our gear. This was really great fun! With the help of Victor Cuevas at Rain City Bikes, who is the Vancouver specialist in Dutch bicycles, we managed to get ourselves set up with a Dutch bike called the Bakfiets Box Bike, now this is one cool bike! It is basically a bicycle with a large (good looking) wooden box on the front which can officially hold up to 200lbs. This was the perfect solution for photographing Louise and Dean’s Wedding, who got married at the Stanley Park Chapel and then spent a little over an hour going around Stanley Park in a horse and carriage. The idea was to stop at a few places on the horse and carriage ride and take some photos of the two of them. So while they were in the horse and carriage I pedaled the bike, all our gear, and Steff nearby. It was great; quiet and clean (no fossil fuels being burned here, just my leg muscles on the hills) and with no worries about finding parking or following the horse and carriage. And thanks to clever Dutch bicycle engineering (and an internal 8 speed hub) the bike was super easy to ride, steer and pedal even with all the weight, in fact the bike actually handled better with weight than empty, amazing! We really enjoyed being able to work and use the Bakfiets Bike and since hyperfocus is also an equal opportunity employer, the next time we do this it’s going to be Steff who is pedaling me 😉
The second thing is that we decided to join the Vancouver Car Cooperative. We had been looking around at new vehicles and thinking about what kind of car to lease for the business, when it was suggested that we check out the car Co-Op. As it turned out the Co-Op made a lot of sense partially because of the neighborhood we live in; there are at least two dozen Co-Op cars very nearby. So we initially decided to join on a trial basis to see how it goes. It’s going very well!
Now whenever we need a car we simply book one ahead of time or a few minutes before we need it, no real problems so far. All the cars are generally less than 4 years old, very well maintained and there is a nice variety of vehicles to choose from depending on what we are doing, whether its shooting a wedding or doing other shoots involving extensive lighting equipment and props. It is a smart way to be involved in sustainable vehicle ownership that makes a significant reduction in the number of cars on the road and it just makes sense on so many levels. It really feels great to be a part of this community cooperative that is really quite unique in North America. I am sure that in 15-20 years time this concept will become common place in communities everywhere.
If you are looking for a wedding planner who plans great weddings that are eco-friendly and environmentally responsible, then you really ought to get in touch with Susan Johnston at Green Coast Weddings.
Needless to say there are many other aspects to our company that are consciously sustainable, sophisticated and eco-friendly, but that would lead to a much longer article. If you’d like to know more about us and our Green aspect to wedding photography. just give us a call! 🙂
justin
Full of so much love!!!……
That’s how we can best describe Beth and Dan’s wedding. Their wedding day had a marvelous summer-time, romantic feeling to it with an absolutely gorgeous, blue sky sunny day. We were very excited to photograph their wedding day! Beth and Dan are very good friends of ours and by the nature of what we do, we knew that we would have the special position being so close to them on their wedding day! What friend could ask for more?! We felt so lucky to be immediately nearby to the most intimate emotions of their day.
With the sailboats behind them, Beth and Dan were married by the sea in Victoria at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, with all their closest family and friends surrounding them. During the ceremony, both Beth and Dan’s parents read beautiful poems about love, including “Home and Love” by Robert Service read by Beth’s Dad. And her Mom lovingly read one of her very own poems to the bride and groom.
Beth and Dan both grew up in Cadboro Bay, having had many fun days playing at the beach or at Gyro Park as children, skateboarding or sailing in the bay as teenagers. It was absolutely the perfect setting for their wedding to take place!
Dad sees Beth for the first time. Such a beautiful moment!
Evan, the little Ring Bearer looking a little…terrified, but still cute.
Moments after their touching ceremony… full of so much love!!!
No Cadboro Bay wedding is complete without a few photographs with the Octopus in Gyro Park!! 🙂
Their first dance to “Green Eyes’ by Coldplay
Congratulations Beth and Dan – may your lives together continue to be filled with love, laughter and happiness!!
steff + justin
Home and Love by Robert Service
Just Home and Love! the words are small
Four little letters unto each;
And yet you will not find in all
The wide and gracious range of speech
Two more so tenderly complete:
When angels talk in Heaven above,
I’m sure they have no words more sweet
Then Home and Love.
Just Home and Love! it’s hard to guess
Which of the two were best to gain;
Home without Love is bitterness;
Love without Home is often pain.
No! each alone will seldom do;
Somehow they travel hand and glove:
If you win one you must have two,
Both Home and Love.
And if you’ve both, well then I’m sure
You ought to sing the whole day long;
It does not matter if you’re poor
With these to make divine your song.
And so I praisefully repeat,
When angels talk in Heaven above,
There are no words more simply sweet
Then Home and Love.
What a gorgeous sunny afternoon we had with Kelly + Dave out in Steveston. The two love spending time out there walking along the shoreline path at Garry Point Park, so it was the perfect place to have an engagement photo session with them. The sun was so warm and bright, which lent itself nicely to a relaxed, ‘hot days of summer’ themed photo session. Contrary to popular belief a bright high sun is actually not flattering light to photograph people in, but we had a number of tricks up our sleeves to shoot in those conditions… so off we went and created some great and varied images of Kelly + Dave. They later said they were quite nervous at first when we started photographing them, not having been in front of a camera very much beforehand. But then Dave said that right after the first few shots, they instantly felt totally comfortable with us and it shows in their photographs. We find that many of our clients have not spent much time with professional photographers before, which is why we think it’s just great to have a fun and relaxed engagement session before the wedding day, because it really helps to feel more confident on your wedding day with the tips we can give during the engagement session. Plus, best of all, it’s great to have some professional photographs to celebrate your engagement and have some great images of the two of you outside the wedding day. Anyhow, we really had a lot of fun with Dave and Kelly and are looking forward to their wedding later this summer. 🙂
So in love…
Relaxing along the Fraser River.
Just a lovely stroll in the park….
To shake things up a bit, we had a special little surprise for Dave. When we rolled into Steveston to find some options to Garry Point park in case of rain, we found this old, vintage garage! We knew that Dave is training to be a specialized truck mechanic, so we thought this would be a perfect little add-on location to their engagement photo session!
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Hi, very cool blog. You may want to link to my squidoo lens Weddings Gone Green. http://squidoo.com/agreenwedding
you guys rock! i love the photo of steffi in the bakfiet! definitely a bonus when looking for a photographer 🙂
thanks heather, just tryin’ to do our bit where we can and have some fun along the way!
Saw a link to this blog entry at http://www.yehudamoon.com/index.php?date=2008-08-25 and I have to say: nice job! I’m a big fan of the bakfiets though I don’t own one, I DO own a Azor Oma (and a Surly Big Dummy). It seems to me that a 3 wheel bike would have been ideal as a mobile wedding platform because of the ability to stop and shoot w/o the need to balance the bike. However, the bakfiets ON it’s stand has the same stability w/ none of the drawbacks, and I figure you did your research and compared the two before you bought. If I ever get remarried in Vancouver, I’ll be sure to look you up, and recommend you to others!