Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

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…)

What a way to welcome in wedding season! Sarah and I joined Jonny and Gerda, their families, and their sharp dressed friends last week for their exceptionally fun wedding. Everyone was lively and so happy, and Gerda and Jonny are so cute together. I absolutely loved their stylish, unique choice of wardrobe for the bridal party. (Can you believe Jonny picked out the dresses?) The yellow was so striking everywhere we went, and the guys’ suits were absolutely classic (and a little gangster, which I love!).

We also lucked out with the weather. The week before their wedding, it kept snowing and raining, and the ground everywhere was white and muddy. I begged the snow the night before to melt before we set outside to do the formals, and it listened to me! We even found a lot of green space even though Lethbridge isn’t really in bloom yet. It’s all about faking it :)

I had such a great time with everyone and loved that these two wanted photos that reflected their youthful vibrant personalities… even if that meant climbing up on pool tables! (more…)

I’m happy I can finally post these now that their mom has seen them! Just before Christmas Pam, Jamie, Stephanie, and Robyn got together for a photo shoot to surprise their mom with. I had an awesome time with these girls, especially because I used to taiko drum with Pam and her mom (back when I had more spare time!), and took a few drama classes with Jamie in university, so it was nice to see everyone again! These girls were a riot and it was so easy to get the most genuine bursts of laughter from them. Since it was pretty cold outside, like every day lately, we did the photos inside Lethbridge’s gorgeous Galt Museum before braving another couple minutes of photography outside in Galt Gardens. (more…)

This last very beautiful Saturday I got to shoot the wedding of Eric and Chelsey (Julie’s bridesmaid) and had such a great time…. I anticipated it would be so much fun, and I was not let down at all! These two are young, totally in love, and (my personal favorite) a little bit silly, which all amounted to such great moments for me to capture! We worked super fast to fit in all the wonderful ideas we had, and ran totally on time all day – they even had time for a few spins on the ferris wheel!

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It’s been a while, but here is my first zombie pinup of the year! Between the great locations, Starsha’s excellent modeling, and not having done one in a while, it was really hard to narrow these photos down!

Starsha has several pet cockroaches, and we made use of them for the last portion of the shoot. They are actually pretty laid back creepy crawlies, but when we would put them on her they would make a run for it. We ended up having to only use one so they didn’t get lost in the field (because that would just suck for EVERYONE), and I multiplied it afterward. If you are absolutely terrified of cockroaches, it is the last photo, so you are safe to scroll through the 16 that come before it.

When I first arranged this shoot with Starsha, Hope Litwin had recently done a little personal assignment, Project: Norma Jean, recreating Marilyn Monroe’s ballerina photo. I found out Starsha had an orange tu-tu, so Project: Zomba Jean was born…

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Last Saturday I had the honor of photographing Amber and Ian’s wedding (with Michael Warf as my second shooter) and we had a blast with this fun couple! They are so cute and I love their goofy senses of humor, which I haven’t been able to get enough of since I met them last year. I was sad to only have a limited amount of time to shoot them, but we worked quickly and did tons in that time. Amber was a natural in front of the camera, but I think Ian did just as awesome as her (and he had doubts, sheesh!).

I hope you guys are having a blast in Thailand!

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