Holy Moly! 2018 Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards - (Winners!!)

2018 Vancouver Island Wedding Awards winners of Best Overall Wedding Photographers, Best Candid Photo, and Best Group Photo! Wew wew!

We clean up alright.

We’ve been living on Vancouver Island for about 2 and a half years now, and it’s been such an amazing experience. Matt was raised in a small town in northern BC, and Sayde grew up in the country in Southern Ontario, so needless to say: small town island life suits us very well!

Aside from the laid back, outdoor lifestyle of Island life, we’ve fallen in love with the community here. The wedding industry community most of all! Even though there are sooo many talented wedding vendors in Victoria area, and all over Vancouver Island, there is a huge sense of support, encouragement, and inclusiveness.

Every year talented wedding industry professionals gather to celebrate the year, enjoy a night out, and indulge in delicious food and drinks at the Vancouver Island Wedding Awards! As the day of the awards drew closer we got more and more excited to enjoy our first date night in 10 months. This year was our first year attending the awards show, and we could not have been more excited to see and mingle with all the vendors we’ve gotten to know.

As parenthood, self employment, and a career in the wedding industry have taught us: things don’t always go according to plan and you need to adapt and roll with it! Half way through the evening parenthood duty popped up I had to leave quickly to pick up our sick babe at the sitter, leaving Matt solo for the awards half of the evening.

I spent the rest of the night driving around to soundly keep our daughter asleep, until it came time to pick up Matt. A heavy armed Matt walked out to the car carrying three white boxes, three bottles of wine, and three envelopes. At first I thought maybe we won some door prizes, until Matt opened each box which housed a glass diamond: Best Candid Photo, Best Group Photo, and Best Overall Wedding Photographer. I ALMOST FELL OVER! Matt also told me that we also placed as finalists for Best Wedding Couple Photo and Best Engagement Photo.

I was instantly emotional for so many reasons..

This year was our wildest year so far; personally and in business! We welcomed our first baby in January, have had more weddings, and more travel than any year to date! This year of baby-obsession, challenges, lessons, excitement, and perseverance-through-sleep-deprivation has been our most fulfilling year, but in the haze of business its easy to second guess yourself and wonder if you’re doing the best job that you could be. Happy clients who love and cherish their photos is what we live and work so hard for as business owners, and these awards feel great to have acknowledgement that our photographs, perspectives, and creativity is translating with clients, other wedding professionals, and other creatives.

We’re so thankful to have the best, trusting clients! We can’t wait to finally have the time in our slower season to start posting more of the blogs from their weddings this year. Until then, here are our winning images!

2018 Winners of the “Best Candid Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Winners of the “Best Group Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Finalist for “Best Couple Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Finalist for “Best Engagement Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

For the “best overall wedding photographers” category, there isn’t any single image alone that wins this title…it’s more an assessment of the total of the work you produce, so for this photo we have simply chosen a few images as figureheads to represent the award. They are also some of our favourites of the year!

2018 Winners of the “Best Overall Wedding Photographers” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Winners of the “Best Overall Wedding Photographers” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Winners of the “Best Overall Wedding Photographers” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

Matt had to accept the awards on his own since I was gone with our sicky babe, but I think he brought enough personality to the winners’ photobooth for the two of us!

We hope you love the images, and please get in touch if you’d like to discuss your wedding day photography, or anything else!

An Autumn Road Trip Around Iceland // Matt and Sayde's Personal Adventure

Matt and Sayde's great big, landscape loving, road trip having, honeymoon - babymoon adventure in Iceland // Victoria Wedding Photographers

Way back when Matt and I first started talking and getting to know each other as friends, we talked mostly about photography, and camera stuff in general.  As time went on we chatted more about our hobbies, our childhoods, and things we had hoped to accomplish and do in the future - bucket lists, if you will.  One of the things that embodied all of those things was the experience of past travels, and dream of future travel. We made lists of all the places we wanted to visit, and shared photos of interesting landscapes from places we wanted to see.  Norway, Croatia, Australia, and beyond. One place that came up in almost every conversation and photo share session was Iceland, which crept quickly to the top of both of our lists of must-see places. Fast forward four years to 2016; we were getting married and we were planning a honeymoon to Iceland.  For those who don't know, 2016 was an eventful year for us as we moved to Vancouver Island, worked hard to establish our wedding photography in Victoria, and then got married ourselves.  We decided to wait a year and take our dream honeymoon in a less busy times!

With this postponement of our honeymoon came the most wonderful opportunity: photographing a series of destination elopements in Iceland.  Perfect! Not only would be be travelling, meeting interesting people, and photographing a place we'd been dying to see for years, but we'd also get the opportunity to get to know, and photograph, adventurous couples who were as filled with Iceland wanderlust as we are. You can find each of their elopements in our blog.

This post however is about our personal trip around Iceland in the days leading up to the elopements we photographed. We started our road trip in  Reykjavik and travelled counterclockwise around the ring road, stopping everywhere that made our jaws dropped.  Our jaws dropped almost every ten minutes down the road.  We were awestruck not only by the striking, and often times surreal, landscapes, but also by the way we often felt like we were the only people there, the way the sun hung so low along the horizon on autumn days that it seemed like sunset all the time, and the way the northern lights danced like rivers through the sky at night. So many times we found ourselves staring, or gasping, and asking out loud, "Could this possibly be real?!", as we tried to pinch ourselves awake from what felt like dreams.  

Without further adieu (and because I promised Matt I wouldn't write a paragraph for each photo about the geology of each location, and the saga histories that revolve around them), here's a few highlights from our trip!   Make sure to check out the drone video at the bottom as well! 

Clouds over Reykjavik.

Taking pictures of Matt taking pictures.

Making some friends.

Gullfoss, along the Golden Circle.

Sayde overlooking Faxifoss.

Matt makes a break for the black sand beaches.

Flying over Reykjanes.

Road selfies are the road-trippingest selfies!

Dramatic clouds and lighthouses galore.

Tiny man, big cliffs.

Matt checking out Seljalandsfoss.

Birds eye view of Seljalandsfoss.

Pregnant photographer portrait of a pregnant Icelandic horse.

Sayde and the sunshine.

Matt at the end of a rainbow, at the bottom of Skogafoss.

Overlooking expanses of black sand beach under the Dyrholaey cliffs.

Dyrholaey.

Little Matt, biiiig waves!

Can you spot Sayde?

Watching the northern lights from our hotel room, and FossHotel.

Tiny Sayde perched on canyon cliffs.

Iceland in a nutshell: sheep and waterfalls.

Dodging puddles, or auditioning for a Gap ad?

Too many cameras to juggle. It is a real struggle.

Never enough Icelandic horses.

Matt fighting the wind!

So much mist at Godafoss.

Matt perched over Berserkjahraun lava feild.

The very famous, very photogenic Kirkjufell.

Sayde controls the ocean, just so you know.

We also made a video featuring footage from our drone throughout Iceland!  Check that out below:

Travel Photography - Exploring the PNW Coastline with a Kiwi

Hey all, Matt here!  I figured I'd share a bit of a personal/travel blog.  This past August, we found ourselves with a rare weekend off.  You need to understand that, as wedding photographers, a weekend off in August is a bit of a holy grail. It's typically one of our busiest months....a month that we rarely see friends or family, and spend most our days (aside from Saturdays, where we're shooting), with our faces illuminated by a computer screen.  

So special an occasion was this August weekend off, that a good friend of mine from New Zealand decided he better take the opportunity to come experience a Canadian summer, and hopped a plane for a visit. Having previously only experienced Canada in the winter, Larryn's impression up until now from travels through BC was similar to the clichés......snow and cold, fireplaces, igloos.  

Upon Larryn's arrival in our hometown of Sooke, I set about showing him everything that makes this area so beautiful.  Larryn is a talented photographer himself, specializing in astro photography and landscapes, so we set out to capture as much of the beauty of the places we visited as we could!  

It was also fortuitous that the Total Eclipse happened to fall during his visit (totally unplanned), so we decided to travel down to the "Zone of Totality" in Oregon to experience it firsthand.  Pretty amazing!  Definitely have it in the calendar for next time.

Below are a selection of my photos from the trip.  For the photo geeks out there, these photos are a mix of shots from a Nikon D750, Canon M3, Mavic Pro Drone, and of course the trusty ol' iPhone. 

Sheringham Point Lighthouse, just outside Sooke in Shirley. 

Shortly after capturing the first photo of the Lighthouse, the fog came rolling in fast and heavy.  They sure don't call it "Fogust" for nothing!

After the fog came in we left Sheringham Point and headed to Jordan River where we photographed this row of pilings.  The fog on the horizon actually made for a great backdrop, creating an "infinity" effect where typically you can see the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.  

Travelling further up the coast to just outside Port Renfrew, where we had to get a shot using the drone of this bridge across a giant river valley.  Hard to tell the perspective, but it's probably 100 feet down to the water below the bridge!   That's us standing in the middle.

This is a giant Douglas Fir tree known as "Big Lonely Doug".  It's a bit of a 4x4 to get to, but well worth the trip!  We've taken almost every visitor we've hosted up to this location.  Doug was used as an anchor point to haul in other trees that were logged from this clearing, then for whatever reason he was left standing, the lone tree in the field.  For additional size perspective, check out THIS SHOT from a previous trip, with Sayde standing at the bottom of the tree! 

Botanical Beach near Port Renfrew.  We had a GORGEOUS sunset on the evening we were down here, but unfortunately we weren't able to capture at its most ideal moment, because a BEAR wandered onto the scene!  Still though.....this island makes an awesome subject.  

(This shot by Larryn, I am pictured in it).  The bear we encountered crossed behind me on the beach, and showed a keen interest in our bags of photography gear.  Larryn, being from the land of NO natural predators, was particularly fascinated by the encounter.  So much so, that it actually made him a bit of a celebrity down in New Zealand.  Read more about that here. 

Headed down the Oregon Coast, one of our first stops was Cape Kiwanda.  Always dramatic, always beautiful.

Larryn walking with Haystack Rock in the background.

Haystack Rock, Cape Kiwanda OR

Cape Kiwanda, OR

This was a little lookout we found as we were driving the coastline.  A pretty amazing perspective of the Netarts Bay peninsula. 

Finding a clear spot to photograph the eclipse was a bit of a challenge!   When we woke up in the morning near Depoe Bay, OR, there was a heavy fog sitting over the water.  We ended up driving a fair ways inland and stopping in a random little pull-out on the side of the road where the fog was cleared.  We of course didn't plan well enough to find any eclipse glasses, so we were VERY fortunate that other people stopped in the same location had spares for us!

The eclipse itself was such a unique experience in the Zone of Totality, and so hard to describe in a way that really portrays it.  The day literally turned to night, the temperature dropped significantly....crickets started chirping, birds went silent.  It was eerie and awesome all at the same time.  I captured this series of the moon crossing the sun. 

I also thought this shot of the sun just emerging (called the "diamond ring" effect) was pretty cool.

After the eclipse we travelled back up the coast, stopping at Cape Meares. 

We were back into the heavy fog here, and it was SUPER windy!   The pathway down to the lookouts.  

Foggy water out from the coast at Cape Meares. 

Cape Meares Lighthouse. 

Fog for days.

Cannon Beach has special meaning to Sayde and I, so I was excited to get back there to shoot more photos again!  Larryn and I spent the afternoon/evening at the beach, capturing a beautiful sunset, and getting the opportunity to do some drone flights. 

Larryn getting a snap shot close to sunset at Cannon Beach.

Setting up a shot.  You can see the fog still sitting on the horizon behind Larryn.

One of my shots of sunset as the sun disappears behind the smaller rock at Cannon Beach.

A neat portrait of Larryn standing in the water after sunset with the moon above him, getting his angle at Cannon Beach.  

 A long exposure post-sunset of the rocks at Cannon Beach. 

Campfires on the beach with the giant rock formations looming in the background. 

With Larryn being an expert astro photographer, I had to try my hand at a couple shots.  I'm sure his night photos from the beach will be much more impressive, but I'm pretty happy with these as a first attempt. 

A second shot of the Milky Way at Cannon Beach.

We headed further up the coast, stopping in to see this shipwreck at Fort Stevens State Park at the very Northern tip of Oregon, near Astoria.  What this picture doesn't reveal is that the beach was packed with people all over the place, and we got pounded by waves to get the shots!  We were regularly diving to save our gear from getting knocked down by waves.  

After Fort Stevens, we headed just across the giant Astoria bridge (which is also really cool....sorry no photo taken), and camped out beside a really awesome spot we had scouted out on the way down, hoping to capture a dramatic sunrise.  We were not let down!  I only wish the tide was a little lower as these pilings in the water were quite a bit more visible when we saw them on the way down.  Still though....that sunrise!  

A second shot from the same sunrise.  Capturing this was almost worth the no sleep.  The roadside camping location we chose was silent when we rolled into it around 1am, but what we didn't realize was that around 4am it turns into a busy trucking route, and it sounded like semi trucks were driving RIGHT THROUGH our tent.  Not much sleep that night.. 

Following the trip to Oregon, we headed back to Sheringham Point for Larryn to shoot a timelapse of the night sky with the lighthouse.  I captured this portrait of him shortly after sunset. 

I also took the opportunity to shoot some drone footage of the areas we visited.  I'm far from an expert video editor (or drone pilot, at this point), but check out the video below for a taste!

All in all it was a pretty awesome trip, and I was glad for the opportunity to take a short rare summer trip during our busy part of the year!  Showing an international friend around also gives you some fresh perspective on places you've been before, and I definitely learned a few things about photography from him as well!  I look forward to trying some more astro photography in the future.  Please make sure to check out Larryn's work as well, and for more of our landscape work, check out our gallery here!  

Tips for Looking and Feeling Awesome in Your Engagement Photos

Some great suggestions on how to look and feel amazing during your engagement photos, from Victoria Wedding Photography team, Pebble and Pine Photography.

Let's start with why we love engagement sessions so much!  We get asked a lot by couples if engagement sessions are a totally necessary part of getting married.  The truth is, they aren't.  You can get married without having engagement sessions and your marriage is still just as legal, haha.  However,  we've found that engagement sessions are so valuable because they are a great way for us to get to know our couples a bit more before the wedding.  It helps us to see how you interact with each other, get to know your dynamic as a couple, and how we can best make you feeling comfortable and confident in front of the lens so the wedding day is effortless and has a smooth natural flow to it.  It's also incredibly helpful and fun for our couples who are preparing for the big day.  It shows you how we work as a photography duo, how you feel being photographed, and help you to get more comfortable in front of our lenses, so that you have less to feel nervous about when your wedding day comes. 

 In our experience of photographing weddings, we've found that many of the couples we work with have not had professional photos done together before working with us.  They often have questions about how they can best prepare for the engagement session, so we've put together a handy little tips list.  That way, you can put your nerves at ease, and feel excited!

First and most importantly to remember; this is not a do-or-die list.  As with all advice, follow it to the degree that you're comfortable with, and that feels right for you!

Ability to move freely. 
Because we’ll be walking around, and getting the two of you interacting with each other, the ability to move around with ease is the best way to feel natural in front of the camera.  You want to make sure that you can wrap your arms around each other comfortably, and also be able to walk and sit down without worrying what your clothes are doing, or feeling restricted by them. We also love taking candid photos of you guys just spending time together, so the less you carry with you (purses, backpacks, etc), the more spontaneous the photos can be.  Some couples like to make sure they can keep their phones close by, or like to bring a small makeup/lip touch-up kit along which is totally fine. In those instances, we will usually just carry those things for you in our camera bags until you need them, so they don’t show through your pockets and clothes.

Wear the clothes, and do the hair and makeup style that make you feel like the most confident, comfortable, and vibrant version of yourself.
Keep in mind that when you look at your photos later, we want you to feel like your photos are a reflection of your true self, not a costumey version of yourself.
Our best advice is to not wear clothes, or get hair and makeup done to an extreme or style that feels unnatural or uncharacteristic of you. The best way to look good on camera is to feel like yourself! 
Brides who are planning to have hair and makeup done at the wedding often opt to have some hair and makeup for the engagement session, to see how it feels to be photographed with it done.  Typically it’s slightly more toned-down, and less formal than it would be on the wedding day.  The best way to look good on camera is to feel like yourself! 

Decide on a location you love and feel comfortable in.
We encourage couples to choose a place of significance to them, and a place they feel comfortable in.  We love engagement sessions to tell some kind of story and have a flow to them, so that you don’t feel like you're just standing in front of the camera posing the whole time. If you're in a place you love and are excited about, you'll feel more at ease in front of the camera.  This way we can get you interacting with each other to really capture your personalities, and your dynamic together.  A lot of couples choose walks on the beach or the woods in areas they like, or decide they want to have a date night, like a wine-and-sunset picnic somewhere.  Other couples choose to have their photos taken doing a hobby they enjoy doing.  We like to chat with our couples about ideas that work best to reflect their life together.

Match your engagement style vibe to the atmosphere and style you’ve planned your wedding. 
Weddings nowadays have become less of a traditional mould, and more of an expression of your relationship.  Chances are, you’ve planned your wedding to reflect your personalities, your style and taste, and of course your eccentricities.  We recommend matching your engagement style to fit amongst the same general style of your wedding, and your own personal style.  Some couples consider themselves more outdoorsy and adventurous. Some couples vibe with boho, whereas others are more modern and edgy, etc.  So to avoid feeling uncomfortable or inauthentic to yourself, we usually recommend couples dress in what Matt refers to as, “casual plus, or better".  It's a spruced up version of your own real, personal style.  For example, a couple we shot last year, during a beach sunset, described their outfit choice this way, “we chose outfits to that we would wear to a beachfront patio, on a night out for dinner and drinks with good friends we hadn’t seen for a long time.”   

Complement each other’s style. 
This is not a suggestion to wear a matchy-matchy couples onesie outfit, though that would be hilarious. We do, however, recommend your clothes complement each other’s style and scale of formality. We’ve found most couples have a similar style anyways, but we just throw this in as a tip.  For example, if one of you is in a suit jacket, the other might not want to wear those oh-so-cozy LuLus and gym top.  Or, if one is in a brightly coloured, patterned summer dress, the other probably wouldn’t be rocking the Johnny Cash all-black-from-head-to-toe look.  You're both individuals, but these photos show how you complement each other as two equal parts of a whole.

Play off the season and location.  
This all goes with the goal of feeling comfortable and natural in your surroundings. We want you to dress and feel awesome for the weather, and location you're in.  Heels aren't always the best shoe choice for snowy mountains or sandy beaches. If you're planning to rock a strapless dress at the top of Cypress in the winter, bring along a cute jacket to wear.  If you're planning a romantic summer sunset on a hot beach, leave that parka at home and wear layers instead. 

I know, I know! This isn't one of Andrea and Eddie's engagement photos. But we love their use of vibrant colour and eccentric prints to show their personal style. Don't be afraid to be bold, friends!

Don't shy away from bright colours or prints, but avoid fluorescent neon materials. 
Bold prints and vibrant colours can be a great way to show your personal style, but be weary of fluorescent and neon.  Think Olivia Newton John in her 80’s aerobic leotards.  While these types of colours are mostly seen in workout and road-worker attire to promote visibility and road safety, they have started to pop up in regular style as well for a visual punch.  Great in real life, but these fluorescent and neon colours are so reflective that they’ll reflect their own colour onto your skin in photographs.  If these colours are on the front of your shirt, they will often cast their colour up onto your face and your partner’s, even on a cloudy day. (We’ll have a photo in the blog to show an example of this effect.)

A good night sleep, proper meals, and lots of water! 
This is just a general rule for day to day life, but it applies to the day of your photoshoot as well.  If you’re nervous the night before, try to hit the hay early to make sure you’re not tired the evening of your session. If you’re busy with hair and makeup on the day of, make sure to allot time for food and water through the day of your the photo session.  It’s the best way to look vibrant, feel refreshed, and stay excited through your photos together. Plus, as we all know, it’s hard to smile and feel lovey when we’re hangry. 

These are some of our prep / attire tips. But again, only follow these to the degree that you’re comfortable with, and don’t feel restricted by.  We usually spend a few minutes at the start of each photo shoot to let you guys know what expect so that you know how to interact with each other and the camera during the photoshoot. We’ll shake out all those nervous, awkward feelings at the start so you guys can feel awesome in the photos! 

Feel free to check out some other blogs here:

Hawai'i Vacation Scrapbook - Wedding Photographers do Maui!

Mahalo!  We are back from our vacation in Maui!  No, this holiday was not to shoot a wedding, or landscapes, or our honeymoon. This holiday was for disconnecting, and spending some time with family, to celebrate Matt's father, Brad's, 60th birthday.  We're thankful that we get to travel so much for weddings and photoshoots, and we've seen a lot of incredible places as a result, much of our travelling lately has just been to get to know our new turf on Vancouver Island.  So, some down time with the Neumann side of the family was going to be an awesome, and different, type of trip for us.  We had been excited for this trip for eons it felt like: and just like that, it came, and was over before we could even raise our cameras to take photos.  The best part about this trip in particular was leaving the cameras in the bags, and getting to spend quality time with family members.  As you can imagine, in the busy wedding season, we often only get to see them when we are crashing in their spare rooms so that we can be close to the wedding we're shooting the next day.  Some of the best parts of the trip weren't the grand adventures, but just hanging by the pool with them until after sunset, playing jenga around the dinner table until everyone was too exhausted to carry on. 

We've put together a little scrapbook blog of photos just to show you some of the things we saw and did: lots of sunsets by the pool, trekking up the Haleakala volcanic crater, driving the windy and lush Road to Hana, snorkelling all over Maui (we didn't see sea turtles, but saw so many huma-huma-nuku-nuku-apuaa), waterfall hiking, whale watching, watching surfers, and trying to keep Matt's porcelain skin from burning to a crisp.   He also took the opportunity to work on his vacation beard, which seems to have also traversed the Pacific Ocean and is currently resisting his razor's edge as we make our way back into our normal routine.  

Enjoy the photos! 

Matt and Sayde's Cheakamus Centre Wedding in Squamish - Our Own!

You’ve seen our proposal photos and read the story, so now it’s time to show you some photos from our September wedding!

What a funny feeling, being wedding photographers planning your own wedding.  We did everything with photographers' eyes, and when looking at venues and vendors, we saw everything as images.  As wedding photographers, we’ve noticed a huge change in the way weddings are done, generation to generation.  Weddings were once bound by tradition, and these days they are more an event of self-expression, and a way to commemorate and celebrate a couple’s personality, lifestyle, and history.  After photographing so many unique and interesting couples, we wanted our wedding to be a reflection of ourselves as well.  Our relationship was built on exploring BC together, hiking the landscapes, and photographing all over the province. It was important for our wedding to really show that part of us and our life together.  We wanted our wedding to have a very outdoorsy feel without being bo-ho in style.  We aimed for a refined PNW feel, blues to mirror the waters we love, greens for the forests, and metallics to bring in some modern glitz.

With their contemporary glass and wood building plunked in the middle of lush moss and fern carpeted rainforest, perched on the edge of the turquoise waters of the river of the same name, Cheakamus Centre in Squamish offered us that environment and feel.  My mom (and her wrangled gang of family members and friends) decorated the whole place to bring the outdoors indoors.  Ferns, peonies, roses, and metallic votives and charger plates, complemented with hand-calligraphy name cards made by Matt’s mom.  Many of the details of our wedding were pulled together by the help of our friends and family.

We headed to Squamish from Vancouver Island a few days before the wedding.  It had been sunny all week leading up to the wedding, and rained buckets the day before.   For those on the west coast, you know that’s the perfect combination for creating dramatic and beautiful days. The day of the wedding we woke up to skies that were clouded and sunny at the same time, and mist billowing up from the pine covered mountains. 

As Matt and his guys headed over to Cheakamus centre to get ready, me and the girls got dolled up by Faye Smith and her awesome team.  Having developed alopecia universalis during our wedding planning (a condition that affects the hair follicles, and causes hair to fall out), it felt so nice to have my wig styled, make up done, and eyelashes donned by Faye!  I felt like myself on my wedding day, and that was so important to me. 

From there, the day unfolded on its own and we had a blast with our friends and family. Many of them came from far and wide, and some even made holidays of it by travelling to Vancouver Island, visiting Tofino, Victoria and Sooke, while others adventured around Whistler, Vancouver and Pemberton.  Check out some of the photos below, which were taken by the incredible team Amy, Tony, and Lindsey at Hoffer Photography who came all the way from Philadelphia!

Some of our vendors:

Photography: Hoffer Photography

Venue: Cheakamus Centre
Hair and Makeup: Faye Smith
DJ: Painted Frog Entertainment
Matt's Suit: The Bay
Matt's Tie: Beaux Ties
Sayde's Dress: Lisa's Bridal
Sayde's Second Dress: Jenny Yoo
Gold Headband: Twigs and Honey
Decor:  Melanie B Floral Designs (thanks Mom!)
 

Thanks so much for stopping by our wedding blog.  If you'd like to know more about our life as wedding photographers in Victoria and Vancouver Island, or about our life in BC, read About Us!

It's a Portrait Session Giveaway Extraordinaire

Hey Everyone,

We feel like celebrating!  We've been working our butts off on this new website and now that it's finally launched, we love it more than ever. Now we want to share the love with you!

In honour of our new website launch, we're going to host a giveaway.  That's right, we're going to take one lucky couple to an awesome location, and do a couples' portrait session with them!

This contest isn't just open to the recently engaged either!  This can be an engagement session, or a we're-not-engaged-but-we're-so-damn-sweet-for-each-other session, an anniversary session, a newly-wed session, or even a just-because-we-love-each-other session.  If you have a love and you want that captured, this is a contest for you.

Update #1 - Location Reveal! 

We are excited to announce that the location for the shoot giveaway will be......drum rolllll.....

Capilano Suspension Bridge!  Between the bridge itself and the assortment of other activities like the Cliff Walk and Tree-Top Adventure, the winners are sure to have a lot of fun, and we can't wait to capture it!

Entries are now closed!

Thanks to all who took the time to enter and share this post!  We will be announcing the winner via Facebook LIVE video at 9:00pm on Tuesday the March 15th, so stay tuned!

Want to see some more fun and adventurous engagement and wedding photos? Check out our Featured Page!

Matt and Sayde

Matt's Favourite 15 Highlight Images from 2015

2015 was a great year over here at Pebble & Pine Photography!  We had a year full of great clients who were willing to go whichever crazy places we asked them to, and with a smile on their face.  The weather cooperated for the most part, and when it didn’t it still made for some awesome dramatic rainy day photos.  Between Sayde and I, we shot over 53,000 images this year.  You can imagine then, how difficult it is to choose only 15 images each to sum up the year!  The images I’ve selected are just a handful of my personal favourites.  I’d like to extend a massive thank you to all the clients who put their trust in us this year, whether they are pictured below or not; I wish I could have included everyone!

So without further adieu, and in no particular order, here are 15 images that I love from 2015!

^ The clouds and rain chased us throughout this engagement shoot for the better part of two hours!  Charlene and Josh were troopers though, and it’s a good thing because their patience and determination culminated in this image near the end of the shoot.

^ Rob and Darlene’s wedding day was one of a kind!  With an unexpected medical issue keeping the groom in hospital until near dinner time, we lost pretty much all of the allotted portrait time that we had set aside!  With them living in Grand Prairie, and us in Vancouver, and the wedding being in Kitimat, it was nothing short of a miracle that we were able to fit in a quick portrait session before we all departed to our respective homes.

^ I’m a total sucker for silhouettes, and this is one of my favourites that I’ve ever shot.  I love the tones of the sky, the little hint of the sun popping between them, the reeds, the love in Jimmy & Esther’s pose.  Just perfect!

^ We started 2015 with a personal mandate to shoot closer, capture more smiles, more love.  One of the most intimate parts of the day is always the “first look”. We shot more first looks this year than ever before, and there was always great emotion to be captured!  Kyle and Heather’s first look had such big smiles and excitement, I love this adorable moment between the two of them.

^ This image from Travis & Kaylee’s wedding has just about everything that we love at Pebble & Pine!  Mountains, trees, ocean, a rustic red dock, thick cloud cover, and a couple that’s crazy about each other. So glad that we found a little time on their wedding day to sneak off to this remote spot.  Location scouting pays off!

^ Kim & Kyl’s engagement shoot was another example of not letting the rain scare you off!  We love to embrace a little sprinkle from above, as it can turn into awesome pictures like this.  With the city in the background for a touch of soft blurry highlights, the rain really sets off the image.

^ As photographers, we are always chasing light!  Searching out the best spots, yearning for that beautiful backlit sunset goodness.  Darren and Lindsay’s picnic engagement shoot had a beautiful golden sunset that lit them up in pretty amazing ways.

^ This image comes from Lindsay’s bridal prep portion of the day.  Her makeup had just been completed and she was checking it in the mirror.  I was out on the patio of the suite, shooting through the window, experimenting with reflections of the world behind me. I was pretty excited with how this came out, with the wash of blurred colours.  Definitely a favourite of the year.  It’s images like this that help me feel like I am still pushing my creativity to new places.

^ The cool thing about this image from Lindsay & Darren’s wedding, is the ambiguity of the blurred background.  Most people that I’ve asked have been unsure about what exactly they are looking at, which I love!  The reality of the image is that we were inside a barn, and the speckled background is light spilling through cracks between the angled slats of the wall.  With Lindsay & Darren being some-odd 50 to 60 feet or so from the wall, the blurred effect blends together the wall itself and the light spilling through into this gorgeous image.

^ Another from Lindsay & Darren’s big day…what made their day unique was that it took place during record-breaking windstorms which knocked out power to hundreds of thousands across the Vancouver mainland and Victoria area.  Many couples were unfortunate enough to have their weddings cancelled due to the wind, and while L & D’s venue did lose power, we were still able to capture some awesome images!  The wind created drama with Lindsay’s flow-y Truvelle gown, and I actually created an awesome gif from multiple frames shot in sequence.

^ Anton and Natasha got married in Mexico, but contacted me with the hopes of having a portrait session done here in Vancouver with some of the well-known Vancouver landmarks.  Sometimes shoots like these can be particularly challenging, as the popular spots with visible landmarks are not always in the best light, or the most accessible, and it’s tricky to find new and original ways to shoot them creatively.  For this image at Stanley Park’s Siwash Rock, I love the sliver of light across Natasha’s face from the last moments of sunset, with the large rock framing them.

^ Most of the weddings we shoot tend to be in outdoor natural spaces (which we love), so when we get the opportunity to shoot a wedding in the downtown core of Vancouver, it’s a bit of a change of pace for us!  For Pegah and Kyle’s wedding, we pulled out the lighting equipment for some post-dinner sunset portraits.  I love the tones of the city behind them in this one, the leading lines, and their intimate moment.

^ One of my challenges for myself this year was finding more unique and interesting angles on the “first dance” part of the night.  For this image at Pegah and Kyle’s wedding, I was shooting from behind the guests who were watching them enjoy the dance, and I love the way they ended up being framed in the gap, along with being able to see three of her bridesmaids’ faces as they look on while Pegah and Kyle dance.

^ I mentioned it above, but I’ll say it again…I’m a sucker for silhouettes!  During Aaron and Ramiza’s engagement shoot at Iona Beach, we were gifted with just a ridiculous sunset with awesome dark clouds and bright colours.  I asked them to walk up onto the grassy ridge and watch the sunset, and this was the resulting photo.

^ Tanya & John were one of our most fun-loving couples this year, so it was only suiting that we did their engagement photos at an amusement park!  The story behind this image is that the amusement park we chose was a very small mobile park in the parking lot of a mall, and PACKED with people!  It was challenging to find angles that didn’t show the mall or parking lot but still had a lot of colour and fun.  This was my favourite from their shoot, and one of my faves of the year overall.

So there we have it….15 of my favourite images shot in 2015!  Thank you again to all of our awesome clients, and here’s to hoping 2016 is just as fantastic.  Stay tuned, tomorrow is Sayde’s favourite 15 images of 2015!

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Whytecliff Maternity Session - Eddie and Andrea

We wanted to try a little something new this week here at Pebble & Pine.  You’ve been following our weddings, you’ve seen our engagement sessions, and you’ve even caught some glimpses of our landscapes.  But today, you’re looking at our very first maternity shoot! Ever.

If you’ve been following our work for a while, you may recognize these adorable parents-to-be.  In 2013 we shot Andrea and Eddie’s winter wedding in Whistler, BC.  When we learned Andrea and Eddie were going to be parents, we lost our minds with excitement!  Why?  Because it meant we were going to be an uncle and auntie – Andrea is actually Matt’s sister.

After shooting a newborn session with a friend last year, Sayde has become more and more intrigued with photographing maternity portraits as well.  She planted the idea in Andrea’s ear, who then graciously agreed to play model for Sayde’s experiment.  Your first maternity shoot ever?  With your pregnant future-sister-in-law?  No pressure, Sayde.  Luckily Eddie and Andrea are the type of couple who are up for anything, and so easy to shoot, which eases the nerves.  Eddie has a habit of making hilarious faces which make Andrea’s warm smile shine.

We took Andrea and Eddie over to Whytecliff Park in West Vancouver to do a few portraits around sunset.  Whytecliff Park has a small, beautiful beach, with a tiny island you can walk to when the tide is low. It’s really quite tranquil, and really very cute.  Only, we didn’t take Andrea and Eddie to that ‘cute’ area of the park.  We took them to the area that puts the ‘cliff’ in Whytecliff.  Yes, we asked 8-month-pregnant Andrea if she would walk out on to a cliff, all for the sake of photographs – but not before we had her climb through the rugged trails and bushes to get to the cliffscape.  She never hesitated for a second, and with Eddie chivalrously guiding her through the trails, we made our way to the edge of the earth for some photos of the two of them right as the sun set behind the Gulf Islands.

Thanks so much to Andrea and Eddie for being such amazing sports. It was really special for our first maternity shoot to be with people we care so much about!

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