Lethbridge Weddings & Portrait Photography by Tanya Plonka

Frank and Joanne got their three children and their families together for Picture Butte extended family photos at their farm house. Each set of little kids was so excited to spend a morning playing with their cousins. When it wasn’t their turn for photos, they could be found running around with each other.

The family farm was such a meaningful location to do their photos. In addition to growing up there, most of the family lives very close by so they have a lot of special memories at the farm. Frank and Joanne are so proud of the life they have built for their family and it really showed in their interactions with their grandchildren.

To celebrate their parents’ 40th wedding anniversary, Chris and Len’s children and grandchildren made a special trip back home. This would be a great time for photos! They spent some time debating where to do their session, and finally decided on Picture Butte farm photos at the family’s home. This meant an easy day for the grandkids not needing to travel, adding an extra layer of sentimental value to their photos, and having the beautiful grove of trees as a backdrop!

The kids resisted the lure of the play area just long enough for the groups we needed, mostly thanks to help from their moms to keep them occupied and happy in between poses. As soon as they were out of the frame, the kids could be found jumping around and climbing on the trees.

Chris and Len beamed with pride watching their family play. They wouldn’t have wanted to celebrate their anniversary any other way!

After photographing many of their family member’s weddings, I was excited to hear Makayla and Cornell were the next in line to wed! We started off their Picture Butte late summer wedding photos at the family’s beautiful property that backs onto the coulees. Just like a few years ago at a sibling’s wedding, the view was very smoky! Luckily the smoke looks amazing in the coulees :)

Their nieces and nephews were (mostly) excited to have a photographer come visit and gave us all kinds of adorable poses! We had quite a few family members tasked with removing photobombing children from photos, and later the dogs and barn kittens started crashing the shoot too!

The Picture Butte Golf Club was very generous with letting us run around the course for photos and explore the grounds with a whole fleet of golf carts.

Makayla and Cornell have such a great group of people they call friends. Like the other weddings, we spent the day in laughter and never knew what silliness to expect when we turned around. They have such great senses of humour and will have an amazing lifetime together making each other laugh.

Congratulations, Makayla and Cornell!

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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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Earlier this year I had another opportunity to second shoot for the lovely Photography by Andrea Hulst when she invited me to Henk and Melinda’s wedding. We started the morning in Picture Butte while the couple got ready at their family homes and then joined them at the Netherlands Reformed Congregation for their ceremony. We spent the rest of the afternoon doing their early spring Lethbridge wedding photography around the river bottom parks, hunting for the first signs of spring that were starting to appear.

Congratulations, Melinda and Henk!

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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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