Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

Mary and Jack held their Prairie Tractor Club family reunion to celebrate their wedding anniversary. All four generations travelled to Picture Butte to be there with them! The Tractor Club (aka Coyote Flats) has so many great spots to take photos; with everyone already there for dinner, it made it easy to have everything all in one spot! We had quite the variety of weather, having to run for shelter to a barn halfway through as a thunder storm rolled through. Once the rain stopped, we only had a few minutes before the sun was in our eyes and we had to find shade!

Mary and Jack were so elated to see all of their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren in one place. Mary drifted from family to family with a giant grin on her face! Their marriage is so strong after all these years and he still makes her giggle :)

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Lynn and Dennis got their children and grandsons together for their Lethbridge City Hall autumn family photos, and despite it being the end of October, it was a warm day, there were still leaves on the nearby trees, and there wasn’t a gust of wind! They have such a good looking family who are so close to each other. The cousins act like siblings and the in-laws know how to dish out the jabs just as much as everyone else does :)

I was really excited when they wanted to use an urban setting. The City Hall building is one of my favorite photo spots in Lethbridge with its great architecture and the way it reflects the sky and the weeping willows that line the street in front.

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The Elliott family got their whole gang together for Indian Battle Park extended family photos this autumn. Everyone in this family has such a great relationship with each other! The cousins loved playing together, grandpa was a jokester with everyone, and if I hadn’t been told who the siblings were, I would have had trouble picking them out since all the in-laws feel like they’ve been friends forever. They were such an easy family to photograph because of how much they love being around each other, and what an amazing warm morning we had in the river bottom!

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To celebrate Lourens’ 50th birthday, his children all got together for Park Lake multi-generation family photos. The family coordinated so well for their blue color scheme and even the little kids matched! This was a wonderful idea for his wife Peggy to put together :)

Even as their children grow and move on to start families of their own, the closeness between them remains strong. The siblings interact no differently in their joking and teasing each other than if they were still kids living under the same roof!

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Janet planned a wonderful trip with her children and their families over the long weekend. The whole family spent their weekend visiting Waterton and while there decided to have extended family photos done.

We started out our session at the Prince of Wales Hotel cliffs where “windy” doesn’t begin to describe the gusts that day! (I think that was our trade-off for narrowly escaping the forecast of rain.) We made our time there short so the children wouldn’t hate us too much… just enough time to get a few photos with the amazing view :)

The rest of the portrait session was spent at the gorgeous Cameron Falls, where we managed to sneak in right at dinner time when all the tourists were disappearing. The kids LOVED chasing the many chipmunks there so even when they got tired of photos, they had some good stress relief. It was amazing to see the love between Janet and her family. They are so special to her and she was so elated having everyone together.

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It means so much when families invite me into their homes during their limited reunion time together. The Major family had all of their children and grandchildren down in Lethbridge for the holidays and decided it was a great time to get some extended family Christmas photos. This family is hilarious and I loved all the goofy photos they wanted to do (each serious photo needed a goofy equivalent, of course!). Their interactions are so amazing and they really feed off each other’s creative energy.

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