Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

Children’s sized kimonos get twice as cute when it is for twins! Lear and Noah’s family came to visit Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden in Lethbridge for their Shi Chi Go San photos just before the garden closed for the autumn season.

From Britannica:

Shichi-go-san, (Japanese: “Seven-Five-Three”), one of the most important festivals for Japanese children, observed annually on November 15. On this date girls of three and seven years of age and boys of five years of age are taken by their parents to the Shinto shrine of their tutelary deity to offer thanks for having reached their respective ages and to invoke blessings for the future.

The boys had gorgeous nearly matching kimonos and especially loved the ceremonial swords they got to carry. Nikka Yuko was such a perfect location for this and we caught the early fall colours in the garden.

I absolutely love doing Nikka Yuko autumn couples photos, so I was excited when Charleen and Chris wanted it as their photo location. Every few years they update their photos and I always look forward to seeing them again. This year we closed out the garden’s season with this photo session. We were the very last photoshoot on closing day! The colours that were left were absolutely gorgeous. It didn’t even matter that many had already blown away in the wind.

Chris and Charleen remain every bit as obviously in love year after year. Getting Charleen to stand on tiptoes for a kiss made her giggle and we joked that she didn’t need to bring shoes to their session with how often I had her go barefoot.

Leslie’s birthday present from her family last year was the gift of having everyone together and doing a photoshoot! The whole family loves the look of our local Japanese gardens, so we went with Nikka Yuko extended family photos for this session.

Joe and Leslie’s family has so much fun together, which is not surprising when both of their sons are complete jokesters and they have grandkids who are into theatre. Each set of kids did lots of hilarious dancing behind me to make the other family groups smile, while Leslie and Joe beamed just from being surrounded by their family!

One of the biggest projects I worked on last year was with Lethbridge Family Services for their 2020-2021 Annual Report. The report is presented each year in a magazine style with local stories to illustrate their past year. Over several photoshoots, I got to work with many of their staff members and clients (and even got to snuggle a baby Corgi). Their designer let us know what she needed for layouts, and we got to turn each idea into a reality! LFS does great work in the community and it was awesome to see that reflected in the people we photographed.

I was so excited when Joshua contacted me that he wanted to do a Winter Light Festival proposal for his girlfriend Makayla. Our original plan was for me to creep in the bushes, but once Makayla started dropping hints that she’d love professional photos for Christmas, Joshua and I had a much easier plan to work with!

I met up with them just outside of Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden so we could do the proposal in the lit entrance way and then head inside for the rest of their engagement photos. We almost hit a snag with how super busy the garden was that night. Not only would privacy be impossible, but there was barely room to even pose in the spot we had planned! Somehow, just as it was time, the crowd disappeared and everything went perfectly. According to Makayla, the proposal was not a surprise at all ;)

We had the most perfect night that had snow on the ground, was warm enough, and not at all windy. Makayla and Joshua were constantly congratulated by the other guests, and everyone was so awesome for making sure we had uninterrupted space for photos. They were so much fun and had me laughing all night! Even one of the staff members commented on how much he loved their vibe!

Lisa and Jim planned an intimate Sunday wedding to celebrate with their immediate families. After a beautiful Nikka Yuko wedding ceremony, we did all of their portraits in the Japanese Garden. Between the heat and the smoke, tourists mostly stayed home and it was like they had the entire garden to themselves!

You only need to spend a few minutes with Lisa and Jim to get a feel for their great senses of humour. Once you meet their families, it’s obvious where they got it from! The day was filled with roaring laughter from everyone and lots of enthusiasm when the Elvis sunglasses were brought out. It’s so important to find someone who makes you laugh. Lisa and Jim absolutely have that covered.

Lisa and Jim were wonderful to spend the afternoon with. We really appreciated that they were willing to take full advantage of the garden’s lack of boundaries when it’s booked for weddings. We had them going even more off-road than normal and it was so worth it!

Congratulations, Lisa and Jim!