When writing these blog posts, I’ve always focused on sharing my thoughts and perspectives. Although it makes sense that I’m telling these stories from the perspective of the wedding photographer, I’ve always felt limited in what that perspective can cover. Often, I’ve posted weddings here and shared my stories, only to wonder how the couples would feel when reading them. Does my recollection of the wedding day events reflect their own? Am I justly representing the bride and groom’s views and experience? How will they feel about the words I write, and the story I tell?
I decided that moving forward, I want to include some input from couples who’s weddings are being shared here. After all, it is their wedding that we’re sharing; not mine. Sure, I can talk about the photography aspect all day long. I can reveal the challenges, the techniques, the photographic ins & outs, but I can only go so far when it comes to the more personal and sentimental aspects of the wedding.
I asked Ana & Matthew how they would feel about having their wedding photography featured on my blog, and provided a few simple questions. I wanted to keep things loosely centred around the wedding photography, but also wanted get a sense of something beyond that of just the visual dimension. They, being so awesome, replied shortly after with some input that really reveals their thoughts and feelings looking back on the day. They also provided a detailed list of other vendors and services that they used.
What were you looking forward to most leading up to the wedding?
Getting married, having a fancy party, taking fun pictures in fancy outfits.
Can you describe some of the details, style, and elements of your wedding?
We just wanted people to have a good time. We figured if there was enough food, drink, entertainment, and a venue with some character, that everything else would work itself out. A vintage theme kind of started to emerge organically and we went with that mostly so we would have a satisfactory answer for people when they wanted to know the theme of our wedding. Many elements of our wedding existed out of pure serendipity, whimsy, and our inner researcher curiosities.
Why was photography important to you?
Several friends advised us that your wedding is so action packed that it can go by quickly and in a little bit a blur (after our wedding one of those friends actually wrote to us about what he remembered of our wedding day – it was a very touching and beautiful gift). That’s why we wanted to make sure we had the best possible photographer to take lots of really high quality pictures for our wedding. It turned out our friends were right, things went by so fast, there were so many people to talk to and so many things to do.
When we were looking around for photographers we found that there were often limits as to how many pictures you’d receive, how you owned your images, and of course the quality of the images. Jamieson was the best photographer we found that optimized all of those constraints: he’d take as many pictures as made sense, they were all beautiful and well shot (which we saw on his blog before our wedding, but which was also confirmed when we got our wedding photographs), and we’d get access to *all* of our photos. All the photos looked great, but he also touched up and arranged several hundred (!) to tell the story of our wedding day.
One other important factor in considering the photography was that Ana’s grandparents could not attend the wedding because of their failing health. Capturing as many aspects of our wedding as possible to share with them was really important, and we relayed that concern to Jamieson early on. Of course, he delivered with beautiful photographs.
Venue – Terrace on the Green (Brampton)
Photography venue: Halton County Regional Railway
Videographer – Kat Kwan
Cake – The bride’s mom!
Decorations – The groom’s mom!
Flowers: Monaco Flowers (Family Friend)
Bride’s Dress: Maggie Sottero (Bridal Gallery)
Bride’s Maids Dresses: Renz Rags (Etsy; custom design by the bride)
Bride’s hair & make-up : Joan McCarthy
Groom’s Outfit: Topshop
Groom’s men outfit : Their own
Limo Services: Erin Mills Limousine
Guest Hotel + Bridal Suite : Sheraton Four Points Mississauga (Elizabeth was *so* much help)
Data analysis software (cause we’re nerds and administered a survey to our guests that we then analyzed): R
Data analysis methodology : The bridge and groom jointly
Guest Survey: Cherry picked questions from the XKCD survey “A search for weird correlations”