Kathy & Michael's Family Oriented Wedding in Port Credit
It’s not often that we find ourselves standing around at a wedding
It's actually never happened before Kathy and Michael's wedding (or even after it). Their main focus for their big day wasn't about partying or even celebrating their wedding (!), it was all about their guests. When Kathy described what she was planning to us, she said: "It's quite simple, it's going to be very relaxing, and we're really just going to be focusing on spending time with our family".
They rented their local church one warm afternoon this past June, their friends held a donation in their honour to purchase a plethora of flowers, and even some of the church staff baked the most incredible carrot cake (with cream cheese frosting) for dessert!
What's so wonderful about weddings is how so many families and friends who have not seen each other for periods of time, come together. Weddings are a great opportunity for people to catch up, reminisce, and of course celebrate the lovely couple. There comes a time (either during cocktail hour, or after dinner) where we can walk around a room to take casual photos of guests, do another lap, and people are often still in the same spot, talking to the same person, doing the same thing. While we usually take this opportunity to charge some new batteries and swap out memory cards (because, really, there are only so many times we can take photos of Uncle Bob chatting with cousin Tom), at Kathy and Michael's wedding we found ourselves doing that and talking with guests too!
While we can't remember the exact relationship of the guest, Hannah and I (Stef), ended up talking to an Indigenous shaman of sorts who foretold our past, present, and future. I know I'm speaking for both of us when I say we're not very spiritual but there were so many things that this gentleman was saying that were eerily true; he talked about our relationship with our families, our friends, and even each other as friends and business partners. We even began talking about Kathy and Michael and all of the forces in the universe that brought us to this very moment, being at their wedding, and photographing it. It really got us thinking about the paths that we chose to take that has led us to photographing all of these amazing people for a living; it's a crazy journey, we're still learning (I don't think we'll ever be done), but it's something we're so passionate and proud to do every. single. day. The gentleman also told us that although this hasn't been year (and in truth friends, it hasn't- but more on that later) we're on the up and up. It was something we really needed to hear at the time, and just another reason as to why we're so thankful to have photographed this wedding!
View more photos from Kathy + Michael's big day below (Click the photos to enlarge and browse through)
Since Kathy and Michael wanted to spend time with all of their family and friends following the ceremony we decided to take them away for a few minutes just before dinner began to take some of their couple portraits.
It was a truly perfect summer evening- the sun was still out past 5PM (unlike right now), it was warm, and there was so much love in the air, our hearts were bursting as we were shooting them together. Kathy couldn't stop giggling, Michael was constantly touching and hugging her, they both were and are truly over the moon with each other.
The rest of the evening was spent no different than the day- laughing and talking to friends and family. We left shortly after their first dance and on the whole car ride home we were talking about how magical the evening was.
