Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

What a historic celebration for this family! Lillian was celebrating her 100th birthday and had all of her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and a large number of nieces and nephews came to visit for a Galt Historic Railway Park family reunion. Lillian’s son operates the Galt Historic Railway Park in Stirling, making it the perfect venue for their event. This was my first time visiting the museum and I was so impressed by this hidden historic gem!

Once Lillian arrived at her party, dressed to the nines in her pink crown, we got everyone together in front of the train station for extended family photos with the birthday girl. She got to retire from the photos before the kids, thus getting first dibs on her cake!

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This Indian Battle Park extended family photography session was a Christmas gift that was meant to take place outdoors back in December, but it was -30C the entire time the family was together! They made the wise decision to postpone until spring when everyone could actually be happy and comfortable in the photos. After a heavy rainfall earlier that day, everything was so green and fresh in the river bottom!

Three generations got together for this family session. The middle generation are part of a blended family, so they had both sets of their parents involved. Without my handy list of how everyone is related, it would have been impossible to tell sibling from cousin, sister from step sister, etc. Even all of the people who married into the family get along so comfortably with everyone that it’s hard to tell who is the sibling and who is the spouse! Everyone makes up one tightly knit family despite moving away, having children of their own, and seeing less of each other. This was such a great environment for the little kids who were happy to run to anyone there for comfort!

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If we’re in Lethbridge over the Christmas holidays, I’m always happy to squeeze in families who are together for a few days. Chris and Udo had their daughters visit them for Christmas and took the opportunity to do Lethbridge indoor winter family photos at the University.

Grandma and Grandpa came along too! Grandma had the biggest smiles and was so happy to be around her beautiful granddaughters and their boyfriends.

Udo is significantly taller than everyone else in his family so he was like our anchor in every photo (while the family joked about always having him sit).

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Carole and Les had their whole family back together for one weekend and wanted to commemorate it with a photoshoot. They weren’t able to travel so I brought the session to them for living room family photos!

They were definitely due for some updated photos. They pointed out their last family photo hanging on the wall with everyone head to toe in denim and heads full of perms! Grandpa Les was the comedian of the group and would not stop cracking jokes while a few of the others would roll their eyes. He and Carole were so happy to have their family together under one roof.

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Rick and Mary celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary by having Coyote Flats family portraits taken with their children and brand new grand daughter. I hadn’t seen their eldest son and daughter in law since their wedding so it was wonderful to see them again with an adorable baby!

The Prairie Tractor Museum is always such a great location to use because of all the different backdrops it has. Everything looked fantastic with the gray and coral colour scheme the family picked out for their clothes. I loved how well coordinated they were! Our only issue was that the photos took place the day before the big wind storm and it was already pretty gusty… we had to hide behind a lot of buildings and time the photos perfectly for the girls’ hair! Despite the wind everyone was in great spirits to celebrate this special day for their parents.

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Floyd, Elaine, and their family invited me over during the Christmas weekend. They wanted some fun Christmas pyjama family photos before they headed to their ride on the Polar Express train! Each family wore a cute set of matching holiday PJs and festive hats. The kids were buzzing with Christmas excitement even though it was still a few days away and loved having a chance to play with their cousins and grandparents.

We started out the session in their home with some more classic portraits, and their beautiful red walls that we used as a backdrop really tied together the Christmas theme.

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