Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

Peggy and Lourens celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary last year and thought that would be a great time to get the gang together for anniversary family photos! The group has grown by quite a few little members since our last session, which meant a lot more dancing around and silly songs by the adults this time.

The little kids did great considering they all wanted to run around and explore the nature park instead of pose (especially the littlest ones who had just learned to walk), but many aunts and uncles came to the rescue.

To switch things up from last time, we visited Indian Battle Park in Lethbridge. One thing that was like their last session was the risk of being rained out again! We had better luck though and no umbrellas were needed this year :)

It’s been such an honour watching this family grow, and I hope to follow them through their next 30 years of anniversaries!

Before they planned to do maternity photos, Ashley and Jon went on one final adults only trip to Disneyland to celebrate the chapter of their lives that was just the two of them. They used the park’s “do not ride while pregnant” signs to cleverly announce their pregnancy to their friends.

Ashley and Jon are guaranteed to never forget what this pregnancy was like after their trip! Not long after arriving home, we were all ordered to self-isolate and the couple had already scheduled a move. All of that on top of expecting a baby is a lot!

We now had the added difficulty of how to do photos while keeping our distance from everyone and everything…

Our spring lilac family photos finally happened! Sarah was super stoked to make use of the pretty purple flowers for their spring blossom mini-session and even did the location scouting for me. Right when it was time for photos, a HUGE storm came in – our first hail and lightning storm of the season!

We rescheduled for the week after and crossed our fingers – both for the weather and that the lilacs would hold out! As photo time approached, the forecast didn’t look good. Sarah and I strategically texted back and forth throughout the day and rushed out to do photos a little earlier than planned. Success! Indian Battle Park was still full of lilacs and the day was lovely, although a little chillier than we had gotten used to.

Sarah and Kyle are some of the loveliest people I know from my university days so it’s always great to catch up with them again. The last time we did photos, Josephine was a lot shorter, and Levon was barely standing on his own! They now giggle wildly at each other and love exploring the nature reserve as a family.

The year before, T and his sister surprised their parents with family photos. During the session, they lamented that they didn’t bring any of his Tae Kwon Do gear to celebrate the fact he was now a black belt!

The time finally come to focus on all of his accomplishments when he graduated from college.

We started out with some cap and gown convocation photos in Indian Battle Park, as well as some more casual pictures without the grad formal wear on. Then it was time to show off his Tae Kwon Do skills! We headed downtown to somewhere with enough space to go through his patterns plus some different levels to show off his other various skills. (It should come as no surprise he also dabbles in parkour.)

T is already teaching this martial art in youth classes and hopes to one day be a teacher now that he has focused his schooling on physical education. Judging by the skills he showed off during his photoshoot, he should have no trouble achieving his goals!

Elsa and Larry’s adorable interactions together stood out at a family member’s wedding last year when we first met them. I was so excited when they called me to photograph their own wedding. As I expected, they got even cuter when all the attention was on them! They were full of non-stop laughter during their Lethbridge winter engagement photos.

We chose the river bottom as their photo location because of the importance the area has to them. It’s been the location of their favourite dates and was where Larry popped the question. Elsa had a few spots in mind for their wedding photos later in the year, so we picked an alternative this time and ventured into the Helen Schuler Nature Reserve. It was such a gorgeous winter day, which was ironic since the wedding where I met them was much colder and snowier but in the autumn!

When I first planned out a photoshoot with Shaw & Associates Chartered Accountants, they had been using mismatched cell phone photos on the staff portion of their website and wanted a more cohesive, professional look. We set out downtown to update their accounting staff headshots to give the photos a natural, approachable feel. I based their wardrobe suggestions off of the colours of their website and they did a great job coordinating so many people’s outfits. Every staff member now has a matching photo on their site that compliments the design. Even Chase, their office greeter dog, got a headshot of his own for the website!

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