Marshland Conservation Area Ceremony + home-reception | Alison and Mitchell’s Intimate Kingston Wedding w/ Close Family & Friends
How did you two meet?
“Tinder 😜 We went for a walk then watched cheesy movies.”
Alison and Mitchell's wedding is an awesome reminder that you can get married just about anywhere that is special and meaningful to you, and have the most memorable wedding day, even if the pandemic or other unforeseen events mess up your original wedding plans.
I met these two before the start of the pandemic when they booked me as their wedding photographer; and then we met up again at their engagement session last fall, 2020.
Ever since I first met them, I always admired just how grounded, driven, resourceful, and organized they are, given how young they still are!
In short: they really have their shit together 😜
The gorgeous wedding flowers at Alison and Mitchell’s wedding, grown, picked, and arranged by Sully’s Flower Farm
Firstly, they are such loving animal parents. They have two bunnies, and now a new pup called Soka. Secondly, they dream big, set goals, and achieve everything they put their minds to. They own a beautiful and lovely, cosy home, where they got married in August.
Soka, a Leonberger 11-month old pup waits for her human parents to get ready for their wedding.
Their wedding plans changed a bit. They decided that a big venue with 60 guests (as they had originally planned, before the pandemic) would be impossible to arrange because of the restrictions. But they made the most of it anyway.
And their own home ended up being the perfect place to have their wedding. Coupled with their favourite hike spot as a backdrop for their ceremony, this wedding day was beautiful in every way!
In the morning, they both got ready at their house.
Alison and Mitchell embrace the morning of their wedding, just before going to get ready in separate locations in the house.
Allison was upstairs with her mom and sister.
Mitchell was downstairs with his best friend.
They didn't want to see each other before the first look, so I had to do some running up and down the stairs to coordinate things, which was actually really fun. (and helped me get some steps in 😍)
As a photographer, it’s always my goal to capture the actual vibes that go on during the getting ready portion of the wedding day. Whether it’s funny moments, or tender moments… or “ordinary” moments. Each getting ready portion of every wedding has its plethora of magic.
And trust me - even if you don’t think “anything exciting” or important will be happening during the getting ready portion, I guarantee you will love the memories that are created from the getting ready photos.
I have a single photograph of my mom doing my hair from my own wedding day that I love. It reminds me of that morning, because otherwise I would have forgotten - it was 18 years ago!
It's always really easy when the couple get ready close to each other, like in different suites at a hotel, or even in the same house on two different floors, like at this wedding.
That way I can capture pretty much simultaneously what's happening in one place and then in another.
(when partners get ready in different locations, I always suggest that I bring a second photographer with me)
For the “boys”, it’s usually a bit of a different vibe. But equally fun to capture.
Usually they’re less concerned with getting ornamented as the “girls”, there’s simply less time spent on this because - no makeup…. and hair is usually easy (a bit of gel and a comb).
The cool thing about capturing both partners getting ready is that when you look back on those photos later, you can see how the morning of the wedding went from the perspective of each of the partners.
And it's really interesting for your partner to see what you were doing while they were busy trying to squash the nervous butterflies in their stomach.
(oh, and of course the pets. we try and get memories of them, too, during the getting ready. Soka, the pup, was downstairs with the boys for most of the getting ready portion. Because she was a big boisterous pup, we didn't want to risk her jumping on the wedding dress too early!)
The First Look
For couples who choose to have a first look (that’s when you see each other all dressed up before anyone else and before the ceremony), this can happen both indoors or outdoors. It doesn’t matter. A good photographer should be able to work with whatever light you have.
In Alison and Mitchell’s case, they wanted to do it in their backyard.
I love the photograph of Mitchell adjusting his tie. It just speaks to how nervous and excited he was to see Alison all dressed up in her wedding dress. ❤️
Alison and her sister chat about the wedding veil right before heading off to the ceremony
Outdoor Ceremony @ Marshland Conservation Area
The ceremony was outdoors near one of the couple’s favorite trails at Kingston's Marshland Conservation Area, which is just across the street from Lake Ontario Park, off Front Street.
They chose this place because not only is it beautiful but it also has a lot of personal meaning for the couple.
They used to live near the marshland, and they hiked here all the time.
We had the ceremony under the canopy of trees in midday. The shade provided respite from the heat. Which meant that we could have a beautiful summer outdoor ceremony without the risk of overheating.
And nearby there are so many gorgeous trails and winding paths, so that was a really nice place for them to go and relive some of their early dates, and also get some really nice photos of the two of them, in a pretty candid way. Look at them all cute and snuggly on the path!
We did this for about 5-10 minutes before the ceremony, then everybody gathered and watched them exchange vows.
The reason I chose to edit some of the ceremony photos in black and white is because there was a bit of a green hue given off from the trees, and also because there was mottled light in parts. This acted as a visual distraction from the pure emotions. (I’ll talk more about that later in this blog!)
Oh, let’s not forget about the close up ring shot from underneath.
I'll be honest, I try this shot at about 80% of weddings, and nail it only at about 60% of those.
That's pretty high percentage, but not perfect.
Why is it so hard to nail?
Because
a) I try to make it happen in a single series of shots, which
b) takes literally one second
c) I go in for this shot ONCE and then move back immediately - no RE-DOs
d) I have to pre-calibrate my settings and focus to what I THINK will be true once I move the camera under the couple's hands. Sometimes my guesstimations are wrong. Sometimes there’s too little light, and sometimes too much. Sometimes the focal distance is too great, other times too small.
So yeah. I've had lots of practice with this shot, and even so - it's a difficult one to get every time.
If you didn't get it in your gallery, chances are I tried...
Right after the signing, I just loved the way the light was hitting both Alison and Mitchell. They were standing a little distance apart, but looking right at each other. I got a photo of them both in the same frame, but I also wanted to get separate shots of each of them looking in the other direction. This was the result. I hope you find it as beautiful as I do.
Couple’s Photos at Lake Ontario Park
Then, me and the couple went across the street to Lake Ontario park for a few more couples photographs.
I especially love this photograph of the couple walking down the path, the way I framed it is symbolic for me. Because I gave them a lot of white space in front, it suggests to me that they're walking into their new bright married life together.
Here are a few more, but in colour. The latter two photographs (the wedding bouquet and the couple smiling together) were actually taken at the marshland!
The stunning bouquet of flowers was created by Sully’s Flower Farm, with locally grown and hand-picked flowers!
I also loved (and included in the final wedding gallery) some of the funny/quirky shots we took once we got to the water at Lake Ontario Park.
Quirky photographs of couples doing silly things with each other, joking, laughing... These are all awesome memories to look over one day.
Of course at any wedding there's going to be lots of beautiful and epic moments.
Alison carries her wedding bouquet on her way home from taking couple’s photos at Lake Ontario Park.
Alison and Mitchell lean in to each other for a kiss at Lake Ontario Park, happily married.
There's also going to be these quirky photographs, that show your exact personalities.
And it'll be really fun to look over in your wedding album for years and years to come.
The funny thing is sometimes we retain these characteristics and quirky traits all our lives.
So, picture when you're old and grey, looking back at these and realizing that you still pull some of the same faces, or you still react to each other the same way.
Super cute. 😍
Wedding Reception at the Couple’s Home
Once we got back to their house, the reception began.
How could we ever forget the amazing Soka, their huge Leonberger pup, who at just 11 months was already bigger than most dogs I've ever seen in my life! Soka was super excited to see everybody, and we made sure to take a photograph of the newlyweds with her.
Soka was a joy to have at the wedding. I was pretty amazed at how she kept her cool. For how young she was, she handled all the guests at her house really well, and was curious and playful, but also was able to chill out when she got too tired. She was like the big kid celebrating along with mom and dad, and their two bunnies.
There was a funny story with Soka: Alison’s grandfather brought Soka a big juicy bone. She loved it a LOT, but it was difficult to get it back from her! So I took a couple of photos of that, haha, so they can have something to remember.
Oh yes, did I forget to mention that Alison and Mitchell have two bunnies?
The newlywed couple takes time to snuggle their bunnies
Of course we took a photo of the couple with the bunnies, who otherwise were playing and sleeping in their own separate room in the house.
We did also have a first dance. In the living room. With their family looking on. I just added a lot of these photographs in black and white, to keep the visual simplicity of the photo as much as possible.
Particularly when I'm trying to capture emotional moments, sometimes if you have lots of different sources of light or colours it can be distracting to the eye.
By converting the images to black and white, you're removing a lot of that visual distraction, and focussing on what's important: the emotion the couple shared during their first dance, or even the smiles and laughter on other people's faces as they watched.
A quick shoutout for a delicious meal provided by Panchancho Bakery. Everyone loved the food, and had seconds :)
There was also some dances with grandma, dances with Soka and friends, and then after that it was time to cut the cake.
Cutting the cake is a really fun series of photographs at pretty much every wedding.
It's funny if you can be silly together and just go with the flow of whatever happens. There is one photograph that we took where Mitchell is wielding a knife (below)
That photo is hilarious because it looks completely different out of context. You can tell just how much fun they had cutting the cake and then eating the cake.
Especially with an intimate wedding like this, there is a really good reason why each of those select few people - the VIPs - were invited.
They are the most meaningful people to you.
So naturally I want to make sure that they are also represented in the gallery. I'm looking for expressions of joy, surprise, big or small emotions. I'm looking for moments of connection between bride and groom and their guests. All of these things will provide a complete story at the end of the day for your wedding album.
So as you can see Mitchell and Alison's wedding was a really beautiful one.
It had a lot of colour when we were outside, and it had a lot of emotion when we were inside. And vice versa, actually.
It was completely unique, and so very memorable.
Soka (the dog) is tired after a long wedding day and reception in her home. Behind her, her newlywed humans exchange an embrace.
I delivered their album just a few weeks ago, and they loved it! Here are a couple of images of the album itself and Mitchell looking at the images inside: