A Citrus Inspired Barn Wedding // Kitchener-Waterloo Wedding

My very first styled shoot happened because I was new to the Kitchener Waterloo area. When I launched y wedding photography business here I had almost no contacts. I knew that networking was important so I started reaching out to local wedding planners to see if anyone was interested in planning a shoot with me. That’s how I met my now wedding bestie, Stephanie from Sprightly Events. She answered my “cold call” and we met up for drinks and the rest is history! We hit it off and started planning this beautiful fall shoot. She had some people in mind for our vendor team so she reached out to them and I continued to make my own contacts in the area and we pulled together a dream team!

Our main theme for this shoot was citrus, we loved the look of oranges both fresh and dried in the fall and everything stemmed from there! The citrus pops were subtle but they certainly popped in our neutral colour scheme and I have been obsessed with everything citrus since then. I think my favourite thing about this shoot is the dried oranges in the bridal bouquet! Seriously these are probably my favourite wedding flowers ever. And those bridesmaid floral hoops! To die for!

We decided on a neutral pallet and really just let the work of our vendors shine through. It’s so important when planning your wedding to make sure all your vendors are on the same page when it come to your wedding theme. Giving clear instructions while allowing for each vendor’s personal creativity worked perfectly for this shoot. Each business brought their own spin on the inspiration we provided them and it turned out wonderfully!

Photography and Co-planner- Light and Love Photography @lightandlove.photo

Wedding Coordinator and Co-planner- Sprightly Events

Florals- Peony House

Hair & Makeup- Jacqueline Phoenix

Wedding Dress + Bridesmaids Dresses- Ballett’s Bridal

Stationary- ALeite Designs

Cake- Bon ApaTreat

Soap Favours- Barefoot Naturals

Venue- The Farmhouse Cottage

Laura + Taj // A Tiffany Falls Engagement

I LOVE engagement sessions! There’s just something about the anticipation and excitement about a couple’s upcoming wedding that makes the session that much better. I love getting to know how couples interact with each other and here them talk about their plans for the big day.

An engagement session is usually the first time I’m meeting a couple and/or photographing them and it gives me a really good feel for how to capture them on their wedding day. This is why I include engagement sessions in most of my wedding packages, it’s so important to me to be able to know the couple and for them to feel comfortable with me!

Laura and Taj were up for an adventure, which is what I look for in an awesome couple! They wanted to go to Hamilton to take pictures with the waterfalls and if you follow me or know me at all, you know that sessions with water just bring me so much joy! Plus, these two were even willing to get in the freezing cold water in the middle of October which made them gold star clients in my books!

Tiffany Falls is a popular spot for engagement photos for a good reason. There is an easy, pretty path right up to the waterfall, and lots of space in front to take pictures! Using your engagement session to have an adventure or doing something creative is a really good way to make sure you and your partner have fun! I love this session so much and I cannot wait for Laura + Taj’s wedding in just a couple of weeks!

Jonathan + Kimberly // A Whitby Winter Wedding at Jubilee Pavilion

The year is 2020, weddings have been postponed and cancelled, we don’t know yet what our wedding season will bring this fall so THIS wedding might be the only 2020 wedding I actually get to shoot this year. I am grateful that I at least got to do this one (but I am still holding out hope that my fall couples still get to get married!).

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Jonathan and Kimberly got married on a very cold day in February this year! This wedding was a bit closer to my heart because Jonathan is my youngest brother-in-law! I was so honoured that they wanted me to photograph their beautiful marriage, I loved being able to have that connection with them. I try to develop a good relationship with all of my couples, I find that everyone is much more relaxed and comfortable when we know each other.

J+K got married on Valentine’s day weekend in Whitby, Ontario at Jubilee Pavilion. We were hoping for a good amount of snow but a mild winter day. We got neither of those things! Instead all of our beautiful snow mostly melted, and we were out taking pictures in the coldest and windiest day known to man! At least the sun was shining! Our bride and groom (especially our bride) were troopers though. They knew that the pictures were important and being outside by the beautiful lake was definitely worth it!

They had a beautiful first look with just the two of them. They decided to write letters to each other and read them back to back before turning around and seeing each other for the first time! It was such a sweet moment and I loved the mix of laughter and emotions. I LOVE first looks! I’m a huge cheerleader for the first look but more on that in another post.

We had originally scheduled an hour and a half for photos but given the weather, we buckled down and got them all done in under 45 minutes! That’s the thing about weddings, especially in months where the weather is unpredictable. We plan for the best case scenario but knowing that it might now go as planned. Luckily I can be speedy when I want to be and work well under pressure so even though it would have been nice to have more time outside, we got exactly what we needed in the shorter time frame and then everyone wet inside to warm up and the groomsmen went out and got hot pizza for all of us!

I have to take a minute and praise the wedding party, especially our women, because in case I have’t told you yet, it was COLD. They stuck it out, they took their coats on and off and I was so proud of them! And our bride! In her beautiful stunning wedding dress, she was fantastic!

After we got all cozy inside, the rest of the day went by so smoothly! That’s what happens when you have a wedding planner! Ethan was the secret star of the day. I say secret because the best wedding planners and co-ordinators make sure that you don’t even know if something went wrong!

Jonathan and Kimberly were married in a beautiful ceremony under a gorgeous arch made by her brother. Vows were said, laughs and tears were shed, papers were signed, and the marriage was sealed with a kiss! *HAPPY DANCE* They got married!

Family pictures were taken, food was eaten, speeches were made, people sang, the beloved shoe game was played, the arty was started! You know how much I love dancing! I love being a wedding photographer while people are dancing, the movement in the photos just makes me so happy! Our bride changed into her reception dress (YAY RECEpTION DRESSES) which meant she could bust a move way more comfortably and we danced the night away!

We ended the night with a beautiful sparkler send off and off went the happy couple!

VENDORS

Venue// Jubilee Pavilion jubileepavilion.com

Photographer // Sara Whitsitt Light and Love Photography

Wedding Coordinator // Ethan Gill

Florals // Connie Maglioli

Hair & Make-up // Katie Lynn

Wedding Dress // Antoinette Bridal Boutique

Bridesmaid Dresses // One Love One Dream Bridal

Cake // Ethan Gill

DJ // Dave Stephens

A Bride's Best Friend

In the town of St. Jacob’s in the Waterloo Region of Ontario, there is a beautiful wedding venue that was perfect for our dream photoshoot to take place. Stephanie from Sprightly Events and I wanted to plan the perfect non-Christmasy winter wedding… while using emerald green as our main colour choice! However, our main inspiration for this shoot came from our model bride Erica and the relationship she has with her fur baby, Koda. Having a husky as a Dog of Honour? Yes please! The perfect pup for our perfect winter shoot. And although the weather didn’t quite cooperate with us, we were able to get the perfect wintery wedding feel at Cellar 52.

Weather wasn’t the only struggle we faced when planning a winter wedding in Ontario! We also needed the perfect team. The dream team of vendors who would use their creative freedom and come up with something beautiful. You tell me, did they deliver or did they deliver? Our incredible team of local wedding vendors from Cambridge, Waterloo, Kitchener, and St. Jacob’s pulled out all the stops! This wouldn’t have come together without my co-planner Stephanie. Her eye and sense of design was perfect. Do you see those table settings? That’s her handy work. That’s the thing about a wedding planner and coordinator, they are doing their job right when you don’t even realize how much work they have done!

Emerald green was definitely THE colour of this wedding. We didn’t want to bother too much with having a lot of accent colours because we wanted the green to shine. So we stuck with a neutral palette with whites, blacks, and golds. Cellar 52 was the perfect wedding venue because it can truly conform to any style. We love the clean lines, contrasting white walls to dark floors, and the added benefit of having a bridal suite upstairs for getting ready! They even have a great patio out the back with bulb lights that you know would just look stunning for an evening reception. I’m a huge sucker for bulb lights.

Our florist truly outdid herself. We gave her a few requests and then she ran with it. She ran a marathon with it! When she came to deliver all the florals to the venue more and more kept coming and each piece was more beautiful than the last. Stephanie and I LOVE having edibles in our floral arrangements. There’s just something so unique and so special about having that unexpected pop of food peaking out of a bouquet. For this wedding we consulted our florist and we landed on artichoke hearts, dark plums, and wild berries. These foods all give a wintery feel and contrast so much in texture that we couldn’t resist. Plus, all the different textures really shine through in the photos, and as a photographer, I appreciated that very much!

Can we talk about the stationary now please?! If you are planning a wedding in the Waterloo Region, Toronto, Hamilton, basically any wedding in Ontario, you have probably come across our stationary designer. She won the Stationary Designer of the Year award at the Ontario Wedding Awards 2020 and we couldn’t be more excited for her! Again, we gave her our colours and she NAILED IT. That gold foil? That emerald marble? Swoon. Just swoon. If I received this invitation for this wedding I would be dropping everything and attending, knowing it was going to be amazing. That’s a lot of pressure to put on an invitation suite, but it’s true! Invitations are the doors to your wedding, the first time people are going to get a hint of what you’re planning. I love wedding invitations!

That cake though. I love what wedding cakes have become lately. Pieces of art. This cake is a work of art. Like, how could you not want to dig in and taste all that cakey goodness?! Imagine this, you walk into a wedding and BAM, this cake is front and center on the dessert table. What is your first thought? WOW. That was mine when our baker first delivered the cake. It was everything I had dreamed it would be!

The icing on the cake was how great of a dog Koda is! He may have looked a little bored at times, but he was better behaved than any of my kids would have been! I love it when dogs are guests at weddings. I have seen brides bring their dogs for the ceremony, or just for a quick hello and a few pictures during the day. I think it’s so important to be able to include our fur families into our weddings. For our bride, her dog is her best friend, her hero, her companion. They have been through it all together and seeing him stand up with her just melted my heart!

Our bride is stunning but she was even moreso because of our talented hair and makeup artist! Wedding hair and makeup is definitely an understated area when it comes to styled shoots. Our beauty teams deserve so much credit for making everyone look fabulous all day long! I love this elegant and neutral look, it suits Erica to a T. And those dresses! Even though she was just modelling, Erica mentioned so many times how much she would love to wear these for her real wedding! Steph and I love the idea of the reception dress. I can’t wait to see it implemented more in our 2020 and 2021 weddings! The wedding dress is classic, ivory, very bridal, perfect for a wedding of course. Having a reception dress can transition a wedding from day to night, from ceremony to celebration! Not having to worry about spilling drinks on your wedding dress, feeling more comfortable maybe, easier to move in, easier to dance in, and another way to tie your whole wedding theme together! This emerald dress did just that. Transitioned our shoot from wedding day to wedding night and it was perfect. We couldn’t have asked for better way to showcase how showstopping a reception dress can be!

I hope you all love this wedding inspiration as much as we do! Whenever Stephanie and I plan a styled shoot, we love using local vendors to showcase. There is so much talent in the wedding industry here in our Waterloo Region, I feel so lucky to be a part of it!

Photographer and Co-Planner: (That’s me!) Light and Love Photography @lightandlove.photo

Co-Planner and Coordinator: Stephanie of Sprightly Events @sprightlyevents

Venue: Cellar52 @cellar1852

Florist & Decor: Kathy of Flowerz Design @flowerzdesign

Stationary: Heather of Red Bicycle Paper Co. @redbicyclepaper.co

Cake: Q's Cakes & Cafe @qscakesandcafe 

Hair & Makeup: Rachel of B Pretty @bprettymua

Dresses & Jewelry: La Crème @lacremestjacobs

Model & Dog Owner: Erica @ericapeighton

Doing Nothing in Jamaica

I love to travel. Warren and I did so much travelling in the first year of our marriage. Living in Europe will do that for you! Then our second year was spent living in Grenada and that was an adventure in and of itself, even though we never traveled off the island. The next five years were spent having three children and moving three more times. Needless to say there wasn’t really a spare moment to go on vacation.

We went on our first cruise and ended the five year travelling hiatus and now we are hooked. Our bucket list is miles long and we are only beginning to scratch the surface… literally! For Christmas this year I bought us a scratch map of the world so we could document our travels in a physical way. Now the itch to scratch is even higher than before!

In November we decided a little last minute to get away and take a nice break. We decided instead of a trip we would just have a vacation. To me they are very different things. Trips are full of touring and activities, exploring and adventuring. Vacations are when you sit on the beach and do nothing.

That is exactly what we did.

Well to be fair we also sat by the pool and did nothing, sat on a boat and did nothing, and sat on our balcony and did nothing. And we needed it. It’s so important to take care of yourself and your marriage. This is one thing I wish I had known when I got married. You have to keep tabs on your relationship, you have to make time for each other and for your marriage. I wish it was enough to just be in love. It’s not. Having a successful marriage takes hard work. These vacations that we go on without the kids are so fantastic but that’s not what makes our relationship successful. Only when we take the time for each other, even if we have to schedule the elusive one-on-one time, it’s worth it. It’s worth the daily effort and daily checks to make sure you are putting everything you can into your marriage.

Vacations are a really nice reset. They take you out of your every day life and give you a chance to breathe without the weight of responsibility and the distractions of every day life. I think when we usually go on a trip or vacation we feel like we have to spend our time site seeing and soaking in the new place we’re visiting. But sometimes it’s okay to just sit and be still.

So enjoy the pictures of us literally doing nothing and having one of the best vacations we’ve ever had.

More specifically, enjoy the pictures of us reading, drinking (virgin) pina coladas, dancing on boats, eating yummy food, and some bloopers from when I made Warren take 100000000 pictures of me!

A shout out to Ink Box Toronto for my awesome temporary tattoo! I loved it and I think I’ll be sporting them a lot more… maybe I’ll start a new trend like Where’s Waldo, but Where’s the Tattoo? instead!

We stayed at Iberostar Rose Hall Beach Resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica. We give it 3 stars. It was good, mostly clean but needs some updates, which they were doing while we were there. Decent beach, some seaweed, and a little rockier than I like. The food was hit or miss, there was some really good food and then there was some really mediocre food. Service was really good, and their on-site excursion/activity center Dressel Divers was the best part!