Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

Today I photographed an absolutely adorable couple, Andrew and Alex, who have just come to Lethbridge to go to college. This photo shoot was his Christmas gift to her, which is such a sweet idea :) Their smiles were both so radiant, especially when they looked at each other.

Since it’s pretty chilly outside still, we shot in the lobby at the new Coast Hotel, which is absolutely gorgeous! It’s going to be hard not to overuse it this year but I will try my best to control myself ;) (more…)

This Halloween, Andrew Suderman was gracious enough to let me second-shoot for him for this really unique wedding! Doug and Kristine combined the chilly autumn weather with some excellent Halloween elements, which was right up my alley :)

I had Andrew assist me earlier this year, so it was cool to switch the roles. He’s a super awesome up and coming photographer in town, so make sure you check out his Flickr page!

Doug and Kris started with a “regular” wedding (well, regular but with Halloween decorations) in the German Canadian Club, and then we went outside for family photos. Unfortunately the wind was a chilly 80km/hr that day, so we weren’t able to stay outside for very long! Andrew set up his lights inside, so I wandered around capturing all the neat little details they had arranged in the hall.

After the lunch reception (they had an early wedding), we drove out to Stirling to go to the renown Haunted House! We were instructed that we could take photos inside, as long as they looked “creepy.” I am so glad Andrew had a flashlight in his gear bag so we could focus our cameras on them! And I have to admit, I was a very bad second shooter and totally hijacked that portion of the shoot! ;)

Their second, evening reception saw all the guests return in Halloween costumes. So much fun! (more…)

Again we are going back to August with this one! Michael Warf invited me along to second shoot Jon and Dana’s wedding in scenic Waterton, and I had such an amazing time! We were with them all day, right through to the party. Together with their bridal party they were a TON of fun – most of them knew each other from film school, and well, I like film school kinds of people :)

In keeping with that theme, Michael arranged a photo shoot in the old movie theatre in Waterton, and it couldn’t have been more perfect for those two.

Plus, these two were sooooo crazy in love. Dana’s gorgeous doe eyes were always oozing with adoration; I know “oozing” isn’t a very romantic word, but I can’t think of anything more descriptive of it!

I had trouble narrowing these down because we did so many things throughout the day, so these might take a little while to load :)

First though, a tale of my brush with nature! When I first arrived in Waterton, I had about an hour before I needed to meet Michael and his assistant Brien, so I grabbed a wrap from Subway and found a bench overlooking the lake. The deer in the area are very conditioned to all the tourists, so they graze quite close to humans throughout the town. As I sat there eating my lunch, a group of three does wandered by me, munching on the grass. Soon one turned around and started walking towards me. “It’s getting awfully close!” I thought, assuming it would stop at a certain point… but NO, before I knew what happened I was holding my wrap away from the deer’s grasp while having my cheek nuzzled! After realizing it would not be able to share any honey mustard goodness, it backed off and went back to finding stray leaves. Unfortunately, all the nearby people were too busy gawking at the sight to take a photo of it! You’ll have to take my word for it… I’m like Snow White!

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Alright, now that I am done weddings for a while, I can catch up on a few weddings I second shot on! (Though each time I think I am done, another seems to pop up…) This one was shot with Michael Warf waaaaay back in August in Calgary. We accompanied Frank and Val to Calgary to celebrate their special day… at the Calgary Zoo! Unfortunately the weather was so cold and miserable that day, so our time spent outside was not as pleasant as it could have been, but we made due!
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Though I hadn’t known Deb and Zack for very long (their photographer fell ill, and I met them only the day before their wedding!), I took them immediately and loved working with them. Like most couples, they warned me that they are not good at having their photo taken, and as usual I didn’t believe (and was right!). Deb has such a radiating smile and it was so easy to make her face just light up, and Zack picked up my posing cues almost immediately and started posing himself like a model ;) So easy!

They had an intimate ceremony at the Sandman Hotel, and came back down the aisle to “Sandstorm” (I contained myself and took photos instead of dancing).

Afterwards we used Lethbridge Centre for photos and came across another bridal party having their portraits done there. Our girls joked they should have a West Side Story gang battle – the purples versus the black/reds – but sadly no one broke out in dance… :)

Deb and Zack, thank you for having me at your wedding!

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Second shoot of the day! I’ve photographed Brenda before, but this time I got to meet her husband Luke and their “children” Leah and Oliver :) I had such a great time with this little family, and I was very impressed with Leah and Oliver’s photo attention, but then again, so were Luke and Brenda!

(I’d also like to add how much I love the new landscaping at the Sunridge marsh. These photos were all taken in a single location! I know the field will be lost to houses in no time, but right now that park is so diverse and wonderful.)

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