It was a beautiful day, filled with family, friends, music, laughter and dancing. The reception was held at the Snow Valley Lodge.  Their friends and family beamed with pride as they spoke to the couple during speeches.  Because music is such a huge part of their lives, it went without saying there would be a live band, Martin Kerr (who was also a groomsman) and his band played two full sets, but there were also a few surprises.  Instead of sharing a traditional first dance, they played a song together for their guests; ‘When I’m 64‘ by the Beatles. Martin sang for them while Kyle played his Saxophone and Michelle was on her Clarinet.  The other surprise was for Michelle. Kyle, while playing the banjo stood up with his groomsmen (on spoons) to sing another sweet song for her.  ’All I Want is You‘ by Barry Louis

These two people have shared so many adventures around the world together already and with the love they share I cant wait to see where life takes these two wonderful people next.  Wherever it is, there’s sure to be endless laughter and smiles.  Congratulations to you both!

- Love Steph and Shaun

Family and friends sing as Michelle comes down the aisle..

First song played together as husband and wife.

Michelle’s treat

When I found out that these two were getting married finally, I pretty much threw myself at them as a photographer.  I missed them.  Through Facebook, I’ve been able to follow them as they’ve graduated from University with Music degrees, adventured around the world, and come back to Edmonton for even more education. (haha sorry, that sounds creepy… but you know you all do it too, at least to some extent) Both of them are such out going people and I knew they’d be amazing to photograph and their wedding will be one of a kind!

Michelle and I shared a ceramics class in high school… which evidently was the year when she originally set eyes on Kyle.  She’d tell me all about him while we made our coil pots in the art room.  :) They were both part of the big school theatre production “Once on this Island”, and held the only two wind instrument roles… So they spent quite a bit of time together!

Kyle and I graduated together… we shared a few fun classes together, but the one thing I remember most was the improv club.  I joined, trying to step out of my comfort zone.  It was great, even though I was on the C team.  haha.  Kyle was on the A team, which won the city high school competition. They were invited to perform in the first half of a Rapid Fire Theatre night! ‘Edmonton’s premiere destination for improvised comedy’

In improv theatre sports, anything goes.  Kyle plays a variety of instruments, one of which is the saxophone… so he can hold his breath for a LONG time.  Our team came up with a challenge that required a skit to be performed on the spot with plot suggestions coming from the audience… the only rule was that it had to last the length of time one team member was able to hold their breath under water.

All I can remember is that after a while NOBODY was watching the skit anymore.  We were all watching to see when Kyle would finally pull his head out of the tub of water.  It was crazy.  The average person can hold their breath for 45 seconds to a minute. I can’t remember how long he actually held his breath for, it was at least two minutes… but it felt like 10!  He came out spraying water everywhere and the crowd went crazy!!

Last week, Shaun and I went over to the U of A to shoot the engagement session with them. I’d taken a workshop a few weeks ago where we talked about stepping up the creativity and bringing more of our client’s personality into our photography.  I asked Kyle and Michelle to bring along a few instruments. I had a ton of ideas running through my head before the shoot of how it might look, but I learned that as important as inspiration and creative ideas are… when we’re photographing couples for the couple and not for ourselves, photographers have to go with the flow to create great images. The dynamic relationship between us as we shoot and interact with each other comes out best when the images aren’t being ‘step by step’ controlled.

Thanks Kyle and Michelle, we had lots of fun. Hope you like the images.

-Steph

On a side note….Shaun’s camera ended up having technical difficulties literally minutes before we started shooting this session. He’d brought along his old Hasselblad and Leica M5 to play with, so he ended up jumping right back into film again, while I shot the session with my digital camera. He’s working on a blog post to show off his recent film adventures!