Lethbridge Portrait & Wedding Photography & Design by Tanya Plonka

Last month I featured all of the details of Cam’s wedding wardrobe, and this month it’s all about the bride! After working on so many weddings, I wanted a lot of our day to be very unusual from the norm, and part of that meant that a white dress was out of the question! I had a perfect mental picture of what I wanted and as luck would have it, I found the EXACT dress online the next day. Even better: the only one they had left was in my size, in the color I wanted! The teasers below show how great the color peaks out through the lace on it. You’ll have to wait until the wedding photos to see the whole thing :)

The seashells I used in the ring photo were collected over the years mostly from California, and some have come from where we are having our ceremony. As well, the pearl necklace belonged to my great grandmother.

I also included my “tragic” shoes at the end of the post. They were the first thing I purchased for the wedding (before the dress) and I was so in love with them. However, once the dress arrived, the slight difference in color was quite jarring! The dress is a green turquoise and the shoes a blue turquoise, and side by side they look terribly mismatched! I may have hoped no one would notice, but they’re pretty hard to walk in and our photos will have us traveling around the beach quite a bit. Instead, flats it is! I’ll just have to find other special places to wear them :)

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With my own wedding fast approaching, I wanted to give a few glimpses into what we’ll be wearing for the big day, starting with all of the groom’s accessories. Our wedding colors are turquoise, white, and black – and I guess Cam gets to be the bride! He’ll be wearing a custom tailored white linen suit from Indochino, while I won’t be wearing white! Best of all, we managed to find him a tie that perfectly matched my dress. With this being a beach wedding, we’re going with a sea theme so the octopus shows up a few times too. Sadly the pocket watch was too good of a steal off of a Chinese Etsy page and runs in almost double time, but at least it made for a good photo prop! (more…)

The most common question I get asked about our wedding is, “How are YOU going to choose a photographer?!”

Actually, this was quite easy! (And not just because Cam left this decision 99% up to me… and no, I’m not setting up a tripod on self-timer.) I’ve known Ian Grant online for so many years that I’ve lost count. I became a fan of his landscape photography long before he was regularly photographing weddings, and before he was even married himself! At some point along the way we also became friends on Facebook over our shared strange senses of humor and love for ridiculous internet videos and pictures. Conveniently enough, he was based out of Los Angeles!

I had long dreamed of engagement photos in Disneyland, and this past October we made it happen! We spent two fun hours in the park with him, and the result has only made me more eager to see what our wedding photos will be.

Here are some of my favorites… (more…)

It’s almost here! To count down to my OWN wedding, I’ll be making one blog post each month outlining all of the awesome things we picked out for our big day. We had set the date so far in the future from our engagement that at first it seemed forever away, so it’s hard to believe it’s almost here already. I have new found respect for all the brides I’ve worked with because planning a wedding is VERY HARD, and we even eliminated many of the steps that are involved!

Early on we knew we didn’t want to get married at home, and a beach was our top choice. In the end we chose Santa Monica, near the famous pier.

We’ll be having our intimate ceremony on the beach with dinner to follow on Ocean Avenue. By intimate, I mean 10 people including us :)

Getting married in California wouldn’t be complete without some Hollywood in the wedding, so it’s fitting that our officiant appeared in wedding scene in the Hangover!

In case you missed it, our engagement story is here.

My last big wedding of the year was Dan and Heather’s celebration with all of their family and friends (some even coming from Europe!). Their ceremony was held in the beautiful St. Basil’s Church, and we followed up with photos before their reception at the Coast Hotel. The reception was tons of fun, and it’s rare to see that many people constantly dancing!

Dan and Heather are such wonderful, down to earth people and were so easy to work with again. They are absolutely joyous together in everything from their smiles and laughter to their body language. Their bridal party clearly shared in their happiness and made it such a warm, loving day :)

Congratulations, Dan and Heather! (more…)

I met Arieke a few years ago when she was a bridesmaid for her friend Gerda, and I was so happy to hear that she was engaged herself! Her and Kyle planned a gorgeous wedding and made sure we had lots of time for photos with them and their friends. Jan and I had so much fun with them all day and it went by so quickly! I was warned that Kyle doesn’t like having his picture taken, but I don’t believe them after how happy he always was around Arieke :) Those smiles took no coaxing at all!

Later I was so happy to be able to steal them away from their reception for a while for some beautiful portraits at dusk :)

Ceremony: Netherlands Reformed Church
Limo: California Dream Limo
Flowers: The Blooming Willow
Reception: Gem of the West

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