Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

This past Saturday Michel and Sara had a small intimate wedding with their immediate family and headed down to Indian Battle Park for a few hours of photos with everyone. This was the first time I got to meet their new baby girl Melina since taking their maternity photos, and I loved that they brought all their doggie babies along too (who behaved way better than at the last session!). Aside from the horrible mosquitoes, we had a gorgeous afternoon while we worked… we literally finished 20 minutes before the huge downpour though!

Everyone was so fun to work with, and there was so much cuteness… from Sara’s funky dress, to Melina huge open-mouthed grins, to Goldie snuggling everyone who held her… I ended up going “Awww!” a lot :)

Thank you for having me take part in your day, and sorry I didn’t bring a bottle of Off! (more…)

Without further ado…

Last month, Greg and Tarah had a fairy tale wedding in the mountains at Lake Louise. They spent their entire weekend at the Fairmont Chateau, which was an absolutely beautiful, romantic, and perfect venue to get married.

I brought Jan along for the weekend, and on our drive up I was quite worried about the weather… the temperature that morning hit -50C (with wind chill)!!! It had warmed up a bit (-20C) by the time we arrived in Lake Louise in the afternoon, but as we scouted out our locations for the next day, our hands kept freezing up every ten minutes. We were SO lucky the next day because it warmed up so much! I would have been so heartbroken if we couldn’t spend much time out in the snow for photos.

Tarah and Greg perfected every detail of their wedding (and even took part in the reception decor and designing the cake!). Everywhere we went, little girls stared in awe, commenting to their moms that they just saw a snow princess. We had tourists following us all day, snapping photos of the couple. Obviously they were more beautiful than the scenery :) They oozed with love, they were gorgeous, and we had more backgrounds than we knew what to do with.

Everything was perfect all day, and I’ve never had so much trouble narrowing down photos as I have this time. I have to warn you now, this post is more photo heavy than any I’ve done before, so you might not want to look at it from your iPhone ;) (more…)

Last summer I second shot for Michael Warf a few times, and I’ve finally had a chance to go through what I captured and pick out some favorite frames!

The last wedding was Taryn and Jon, who had their ceremony in the Kinsman Park in a beautiful tent to keep all their guests cool. They also incorporated their little dog, and he even had a doggie tux! Their wedding party had a really personal touch by including Taryn’s mom and Jon’s dad in the members so they could enjoy the entire day with them. It wasn’t very difficult to make these two look good :) (more…)

When K and C asked me to photograph their wedding, I was elated. In my early concert going days, I loved to watch C and best man Steven’s band Atrophy Manuscript, but with the band no longer together, I hardly ever run into the guys any more. It was neat after all this time to see Christian getting married (and to such a wonderful, gorgeous girl!).

They had a small evening ceremony at the Galt Museum, so we did the photos beforehand just before the sun went down. The light was gorgeous and we couldn’t have asked for a warmer, more peaceful day. The sun set just as they walked down the aisle. Everything they arranged was beautiful, and I’m so happy they chose the time of day that they did.

Thank you for sharing your day with me! (more…)

The rain stopped just in time for Nick and Alyson’s beautiful wedding at St. Patrick’s church. Because they live in Vancouver, I didn’t actually meet them until the week of their wedding, but instantly took to them and knew I was going to have a great time (and I was right!). This was another crazy fun wedding, and all we did all day was play with the bridal party. With our first stop being a playground, it definitely set the tone for the rest of the day. I managed to sneak serious photos in throughout the day, but it was tempting not to ;)

Later on they had a big party at the Coast Hotel with DJ Thom, and it was another of those rare receptions where the dance floor was always packed. Wonderful!

Thank you to Sarah Underwood for climbing on things and helping out! (more…)

Many many years ago I met “Pleasant” Ross through our mutual friends in the university’s music department, and when I met Erin I was thrilled to find out she perfectly matched him in charm (she is officially “Pleasant Erin” now). The two were married at the Galt, which is always one of my favorite places in Lethbridge, and had their wonderful, silly friends standing up along with them. All the tears Erin and Ross fought back during the ceremony had me emotional too, and it’s always much stronger when I know the people!

I had so much fun with them all day, and their bridal party never failed to keep me entertained (I was delighted the week after when, second shooting for Michael, one of the same groomsmen showed up in that bridal party!)

The reception was a fantastic party where everyone was full of energy and had so much fun (the candy bar may be to blame for some of that). Normally I don’t post a ton of reception photos, but in this case I couldn’t resist :)

Thank you to Jan for helping out again! (more…)