Toronto Wedding Photographer Year in Review

2016 was a great year for me. Amazing clients, fantastic moments and some stunning weddings.

I had the pleasure to photograph weddings at some of Toronto and Ontario's best wedding venues including Malaparte, Fermenting Cellar, Langdon Hall, Liberty Grand, Sunnybrook Estates, SteamWhistle Brewery, Paletta Lakefront Mansion, Art Gallery of Ontario, Ancaster Mill and Graydon Hall
 

I had a really hard time picking these pictures, and I'm sure I forgot about a few, but I hope you like them and here's hoping 2017 is just as good!
 

I love this image from Christina + Tim's wedding at Malaparte in Toronto.  All their guests surrounded them as they had their first dance by candlelight.  After shooting over 300 weddings it's always great seeing something new!

This year I've really been trying to capture wedding details that have a human element to them.   I don't know about you but I think a wedding dress looks so much better on then on a hanger. This is Danielle's beautiful dress from her wedding at the Fermenting Cellar. 

I love simple window light.  On any wedding day you'll find me dragging people towards that beautiful soft window light but in this case Jing was already standing there and I grabbed a quick candid portrait of her before their Chinese tea ceremony.

Not the Mediterranean... this is actually Lake Ontario.  We grabbed this beautiful portrait during Laura + Chris' amazing wedding at Paletta Mansion in Mississauga.

It's better to be lucky than good!   (it also helps being good).

Sometimes when you have an uncooperative ring bearer you turn lemons into lemonade.  As we were trying to get a big extended family picture the groom's nephew decided he was going to do his own thing.

This one is from Alex + Bobby's small, intimate wedding at Langdon Hall in Cambridge, Ontario.   

There were only about a dozen people at the wedding but even so it feels like these two are the only ones there.

I love this casual, relaxed portrait of the wedding party from Danielle + Felipe's wedding at the Fermenting Cellar in Toronto's Distillery District. 

Love this portrait of Jenny + John from their autumn wedding at Graydon Hall. 

Even when I'm shooting portraits I try and keep things very relaxed, letting the couples just interact with each other in some nice light and see what happens!

Always helps to have a classic Rolls Royce too!

Always looking for a different angle, I got this picture during the Tea Ceremony at Haidee + Martin's wedding at the Estates of SunnyBrook in Toronto.

Love the joy and laughter on Jing's face after their backyard wedding ceremony in Toronto.

This was one of the best moments of the year as Melanie and David were surprised by their theatre friends with an amazing flash mob at their wedding!

I love this small, intimate moment as Laura + Chris walk back to their wedding at Paletta Mansion after we did some wedding portraits down by the lake.

Christina + Tim dance the knight away late into their reception at Malaparte in downtown Toronto. 

A beautiful sunset portrait from Alex + Bobby's intimate Langdon Hall wedding.

Whenever I can, I always try and sneak my couples out of the reception for a few minutes of portraits during the golden hour.

I'm always looking for a different angle, especially during wedding ceremonies. 

Sometimes you have to get right down on the floor for that different angle.   This one is from Jenny + John's Catholic wedding in Toronto.

Love the look from mom as she looks on during the Orthodox wedding ceremony of Christina + Tim this past September.

This is one of my favourite first dance images from this year, I love the contrast of the Danielle + Felipe with the warm tones in the background.

Plus, check out his expression.... that's one happy groom!

I love a good, classic wedding portrait with some nice window light.

This one is from Haidee + Martin's spring wedding at the Estates of Sunnybrook in Toronto. 

This is from Sherry + Jonathan's wedding during their Chinese tea ceremony during their wedding in Toronto.  I love the expressions and framing in this picture!

I'm a sucker for emotion in pictures so I live this one as Augusto's mom gives him one final hug before he marries Mashael during their outdoor wedding ceremony at Ancaster Mill.

Sometimes you have to go a little abstract... this one is from Jing + Rene's backyard wedding in Toronto as Jing has her makeup done.

I snuck Danielle + Felipe away from their wedding reception at the Fermenting Cellar for some quick, intimate portraits of them.

We didn't go far, this is just at the entrance way to the Fermenting Cellar.  I love their expressions in this one.

This one is from Melanie + David's wedding in Toronto.   Whenever I have weddings in ballrooms I always try to get back from my subject and try and show the entire scene.

In my mind, this kid is thinking 'Dude, don't do it... girls are gross!' but him and his brother were two of the best behaved ring bearers I've ever seen.    The stood still and kept quiet even during a long Orthodox ceremony... better then my kids would have done!  :)

It's not much of a secret that my favourite part of the wedding is the party at the end of the night... I'm one of the few wedding photographers in Toronto that cover the entire day from start to finish.

Haidee is having an amazing time with her friends on the dance floor during their wedding reception at Estates of SunnyBrook in Toronto. 

I grabbed this shot as I was leaving Alex + Bobby's wedding from outside at Langdon Hall.

Indian wedding ceremonies are amazing to shoot!  There's so much going and such vibrant colours.

This image is from Shilpa + Rishi's wedding at Liberty Grand this pst autumn.

MMMMM... Golden hour portraits.

Whenever I can I try to get my couples out at sunset for a quick portrait session.  The light at that time is amazing and we can get so many great pictures in such a short time!

This one is from Savanah + Bernie's wedding at the SteamWhistle Brewery in Toronto.

I love photographing joy.  And I think it's safe to say that Jenny + John are enjoying their big day at Graydon Hall.

This one is from Najwa + Trevin's wedding at the Art Gallery of Ontario. 

I always try to get a casual, relaxed portrait of the wedding party along with a more formal one.

Art Gallery of Ontario Wedding

Najwa + Trevin

Najwa and Trevin had an amazing wedding at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto!

These two had a real sense of style and an individual look that I really liked!  Those shoes by Valentino were something else!  Trevin's blue shoes were great too!

I spent the morning going back and forth between the girls and guys but if you ever get a chance to get ready for your wedding in a suite at the Four Seasons I highly recommend it.  :)  The rooms are simply stunning... full of light and lots of room to shoot. 

Trevin and his boys (and one girl!) got ready over in his suite at the Park Hyatt in Yorkville.  The first thing anyone would notice meeting Trevin is his amazing, infectious laugh... I don't think I've ever had a wedding where I've had so many pictures of the groom laughing!   Once Trevin's crew were ready, his family joined them for a traditional pre-wedding blessing before heading off to the church for the ceremony.

The day threatened (and did) rain all morning but thankfully it ended by the time we needed to head off to the ceremony at St Basil's Catholic Parish.   Being a Saturday in the summer in Toronto, there was some sort of parade/festival/gong show going down Bloor so we all had to abandon our taxi's and Uber's and hustle down on foot!

The ceremony at St. Basils was great, it's always nice when churches don't have too many rules about photography.  I'm always discete and respectful when I photograph wedding ceremonies but I'm also trying to get my clients the best pictures possible!

One of the best parts about having your wedding at the Art Gallery of Ontario is that you get to access to their beautiful galleries for wedding pictures! 

Cocktails were held in the Galleria Italia and the reception was upstairs in Bailey Court with an amazing view of the Toronto Skyline. 

The details at the reception were great, Coriander Girl did an amazing job with the florals!

Danielle and her team from Love by Lynzie did an amazing job planning and coordinating the wedding... everything looked amazing and went off without a hitch!

The reception was great with DJ Dopey & DJ Serious spinning some great music.  Of course the highlight  of the reception was when it was announced that Trevin and some of his buddies were semi pro breakdancers and proceeded to put on an amazing show for everyone.

You can see some of my favourite wedding images in the gallery above as well as their full wedding slideshow below!

You can also follow this link to check out Najwa + Trevin's Stratford Ontario engagement pictures!
 

Stratford Engagement Session

These two are getting married this fall at an amazing wedding at the Art Gallery of Ontario in downtown Toronto !

They decided to have their engagement pictures in Stratford since that's where he proposed.... the good folks at the Bruce Hotel (where the actual proposal took place!) even let us shoot there!

Here are some of my favourite engagement pictures from their session in Stratford, check back in a couple months to see their wedding!

You can check out their Toronto wedding at the Art Gallery of Ontario by following the link!

 

Toronto Wedding Photographer

Maria + Theo

So this is going to be an interesting post. 

Maria + Theo's wedding was amazing... but we'll get to that in a second.

Whenever I meet people and they find out I photograph weddings one of the first things they always say is 'Oh, you must have some great stories and seen some crazy stuff!' and I always have to disappoint them.   For whatever reason, and I'm so happy it's like this, I don't have any good stories... all my couples, and their weddings, are very relaxed and stress free.

That all changed on September 20th this year with Maria + Theo's wedding.  My first hint that something was up was hearing from Theo's brother that when they went to drop something off at the reception venue that all the power was off.   Since we were in the middle of pictures at the Art Gallery of Ontario, I didn't have time to worry about it and assumed all would be well by the time we got there.

It wasn't.

It tuned out that they had had an electrical fire and wouldn't be open in time for the reception.

I've worked with a lot of wedding planners over the years.... some good, some bad.  But none of them has ever worked as hard as Jodi Gagner from Simply Perfect.  She made the call to wait until after the pictures and ceremony were over to break the horrible news to Maria & Theo to let them enjoy as much of the day as possible.

By an amazing stroke of luck the church, Orthodox Cathedral Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, where the ceremony was held offered the use of their community room in the back for the reception.  From there it was all hands on deck as guests, staff, priests and even a photographer lent a hand unloading the trucks and setting the reception up.

From there, it was a great reception featuring some great speeches, a Columbian dance troop to help open the dance floor and a great wedding DJ to keep everyone dancing.

Check out some of my favourite wedding photographs above as well as the full wedding slideshow below.