What an amazing, incredible, unbelievable few months we have had. We’ve been very busy photographing heaps of weddings and engagement shoots in Toronto and globetrotting to exotic destinations shooting some pretty unreal weddings (coming soon!) But that’s not all… We have also been photographing some fabulous styled shoots and our work has been published on such blogs as WedLuxe, Style Me Pretty and now Australia’s go to wedding blog for Aussie brides, Polka Dot Bride. Since we split our time between our Toronto, Canada and Perth, Australia studios we have the awesome opportunity to share our international work with our readers from both sides.

We loved working with Wedding Planner extraordinaire Crystal Adair-Benning from Distinct Occasions on this shoot. She is an amazing talent that dreamed up the concept for the photo shoot. Like us, Crystal divides her time between Toronto, Canada and Perth, Australia catering to the wedding seasons in both countries.

I have to say that this bridal session was a lot of hard work but equally as fun. The shoot was so inspirational! When we saw the concept come together it was some serious eye candy for us photographers.

The rugged Australian terrain was so beautiful to photograph. I love the way the trees twist and curl in the background. Perth’s landscapes are just phenomenal! We feel so blessed to get to live in such a beautiful place.

Crystal flew over to Bali and found these amazing little pieces in Ubud for the shoot. The Balinese umbrellas are so detailed and gorgeous and the little baskets and bowls were an amazing find. It makes me want to do a little shopping trip of my own

Acscents Floral’s did the wedding flowers for this bridal session. They are absolutely amazing and this is why Dave and I chose them to do our flowers for our wedding last February at Cottesloe Civic Centre!! Val, the florist, has such a creative eye. She creates interesting designs, more like floral works of art. I love the design she created for this shoot. Gorgeous floral’s trailing out of this unique nautilus shell.

Isn’t the light in Perth, W.A. out of control! I love breezy, glowing images like this.

I love this Kuste VW Kombi we had the pleasure to photograph during the bridal session. Why not get creative with you wedding and drive your crew around in style in this sweet ride.

For it’s age, it was amazing that this vintage Kombi was so immaculate. It was like new and an amazing detail for our shoot. Sooo beachy chick. Doesn’t it just make you want to load it up with friends and have a bbq on the beach.

Thanks to all of our Perth wedding vendors that took part in this day full of fun, you guys are the best. A special thanks to Rosin from Alpha Models for our stunning model Anique.

This year has seen so many absolutely amazing weddings, and we can’t wait to share them all with you… As a teaser we’d like to show you the recent wedding of Adam and Meghan at Muskoka Bay Club. You may remember these guys did a vintage engagement shoot at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto.. It got picked up by a couple of cool wedding blogs too (Toronto wedding Society & The Wedding Co)

What I love about Meghan & Adam’s wedding is not only are they a sweet, relaxed, easy going couple who are so obviously in love, but their also had some pretty cute vintage details and a lot of hand made elements to their day.

The slide show you’re about to watch is a Same Day Slideshow, which we put together and present during the reception.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For those of you that enjoy perusing details of the day, check out the cluster below.

Meghan had the most amazing wedding gown. Isn’t the vintage lace detailing incredible.

I absolutely love this shot of one of the flower girls in awe of Meghan looking like a princess

Adam didn’t look too shabby himself. Nothing beats a custom fitted suit.

As Meghan walked into the room, Adam’s face lit up. His expression says so much!

The ceremony room at Muskoka Bay Club has the most beautiful reflected light pouring into it. Love how soft it looks.

Meghan tells me that this next shot is her favourite from the day – I’d have to say I agree. It’s these little stolen moments together than you really remember from your wedding day.

Magic light. Awesome.

More amazing hand made details of their wedding… loving how tactile everything is… note the chalk board table placements and wild flower centre pieces.

What way to finish off the perfect day than a first dance by sparkler light. Congrats on an amazing wedding guys.

This proposal was planned by Crystal or Distinct Occasions (who also planned our wedding!) and she’s recently launched The Engagement Planner… A custom proposal planning service. Very cool idea eh!

Also want to send out kudos to Rachel A Clingen for the decor as well as Helix Candles Luminaries.

Florals were created by our favourite Toronto florists – Pink Twig. Linens were provided by Susan Murray International

The gorgeous invite you see above and the menu and stationary below were created by the talented Deborah Lau-Yu of Palettera

The model for this photo shoot was the ever talented and elegant Ada Adams. Always willing to go the extra mile to get the shots we need. Thanks Ada.

A highlight of the photos is the amazing Cake created by Lori Hutchinson, otherwise known as The Caketress

Finally, I’d like to share with you all this gorgeous video filmed by Honey & Dear.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Suppliers for this concept photo shoot were:

Styled by: Distinct Occasions

Photographed by: Dave & Charlotte

Video by: Honey & Dear

Invites/Favors: Palettera

Cake: The Caketress

Florals: Pink Twig

Linens: Susan Murray International

Dress: Valencienne

Model: Ada Adams

I’m very excited to announce the official opening of our new studio in Perth, Western Australia. From this point on, Charlotte and I will be living and endless Summer – half in Perth, Western Australia and half in Toronto, Canada… Needless to say, we will still always be available by phone and email no matter which country we’re in. The ideal time to catch us if you’re calling from Toronto is 9pm till midnight any day of the week. Of course, email is still our preferred method of communication for effective correspondence. Here are a few pics for your enjoyment.

Warm wishes from us both here in Perth. Can’t wait to be back in Toronto soon

Dave & Charlotte

We were thrilled when she asked us to put our portrait photography skills to use and take some head shots of her for her newly revamped website. Crystal looked so fabulous it was easy to get some great captures for her website!

I love this one too. This adorable shot was taken at Kings Park in Perth. We took a quick drive down to see the sunset and the city scape at night. I love the playfulness of this shot. Very cute!

Thanks so much for choosing us to do your new Wedding Planner head shots Crystal! We had so much fun and look forward to working with you on many more weddings in  Toronto & Perth!

Hey Everyone! There is so much that has been going on around here lately. Dave and I are so excited with all that’s been happening. Firstly we had our beautiful wedding here in Perth, Australia at the gorgeous Cottesloe Civic Centre and Barchetta on the beach. How thrilled we were that we were able to host our wedding here in one of the most beautiful places with the most stunning ocean views in the in the world, Perth, Western Australia.

43 of our closest friends and family traveled from all around the world to be with us on our big day. It was so amazing to have everyone there with us to celebrate our wedding day here in sunny Perth. Not only have we launched our second photography studio here in W.A. but we just had a fabulous opportunity to photograph an amazing wedding in Singapore before we left for our honeymoon!!

Dave and I spent 10 spectacular days in exotic Boracay in The Philippines and what an adventure we had. We stayed at the 20 room Asya Premier Suites on Boat Station 3. We loved our stay at Asya and it was so nice to have such a tranquil space to relax and come back to every day. Since it’s such a small hotel we often were the only ones around. The gracious staff were always close by to see if we needed anything to make our stay even more enjoyable. Asya truly is heaven on earth!

This is a shot that was taken from our patio. I love the little blue catarmarans that sailed each day. Every evening at sunset, the little boats would commute the same route home to the big island. It looked like a little toy boat traffic jam, so peaceful to watch from our room.

All of the bamboo catarmarans had the same blue sails, so nice to see them all lined up along the horizon.

On one of our adventures we hired a tricycle, basically a motorcycle with a sidecar attached, to the infamous bat cave. What a wild ride that was!!

When traveling in a tricycle sometimes passengers have to get out and push as the roads are rocky and very, very steep. Our bat cave tour guide was nice enough to lend a hand to help get us up the hill.

Finally, after an hour of the bumpiest taxi ride we’ve ever been on we reached our destination! The bat cave was not for the faint of heart. Dark, slippery and surrounded by sharp, jagged rocks. This adventure not only required fearlessness but rock climbing skills. Difficult to do in sandal’s. Dave never lets much stop him from adventure so took the trek down into the cave while I waited safely at the surface. Very glad I did, sea snakes are not my thing!

Anita, my cousin, had been to the tiny island of Boracay once before and highly recommended the Shangri-La Hotel for dinner. We left from our hotel beach and took an amazing ride on our own personal catamaran to the gorgeous resort on the other side of the island. What a romantic ride. The water was crystal clean and you could see all the way down to the bottom!

No life vests required and not much in the way of seating. Good thing the water was so glassy Sailing and shopping are two of Boracay’s biggest industries. Of course we had to take part in both! Boracay is well know for their amazing pearls. I bought this black pearl strand on the beach earlier that day!

Once we arrived at Shangri-La we enjoyed the view for a little while and had the most amazing food! On a small island like this one, the food has to be fresh.

Thanks for checking out photos from our latest adventure. Stay tuned to the blog, we’ll be posting some more Perth weddings and our fun Singapore travel shots very soon!

Alona & Howie had the idea to do their engagement pictures in downtown Toronto, where they’ve spent a lot of the time since they started dating. We thought paying homage to Alona’s Russian background would be cool by doing a portion of the shoot in Pravda – a really cool Russian themed bar just across from the Flat Iron building.

From there we cruised down Colborne Street, ending up at BCE Place for some indoor shots.

Isn’t the light in BCE Place just awesome??! Amazing perspectives too.

As we walked back to the car we had some fun as the sunlight was at it’s best. Next we scooted over to Cabbagetown to wrap up the shoot in Howie’s old stomping ground. He even showed me the antique store his family owns where he worked as a kid – we walked in and the phone rang and she’s like “Howie, get that would you? Haha. Mum’s are the best.

I can’t wait for Alona & Howie’s wedding in June at Atlantis! It’s going to be gorgeous.

Jocelyn and Michel’s wedding took place over two days at the 5 star, ultra luxurious Four Season’s Hotel. We had so many favourites, this blog post is full of them but this is truly just the tip of the iceberg! It was an awesome day indeed.

Jocelyn’s house was all aflutter with fun and laughter as her family and friends helped her get ready for her big day!

As she put on her veil her mother told her how beautiful she was and that’s when Jocelyn truly felt like a bride. Their were also a few very special, emotional and touching moments that happened for her and her family before the ceremony. It’s moments like these that really mean so much to family and we feel honoured to capture moments like these.

No Singapore wedding would be complete without some door crashing shenanigans!!! These boys were ready for some craziness and the girls weren’t going to let Michel have Jocelyn that easily. They demanded begging and pleading . As the girls chanted… “We don’t want your money, we just want your dignity!!!” All we could do was try to hold the cameras steady and laugh!!

This couple had fabulous style. You can’t get any more stylish than Cartier wedding bands, can you?!

They were both so sweet, you can see how thrilled they are to be married and in LOVE!!

We headed out to Singapore’s Botanical Gardens for their bridal session. The gardens were sooo lush and green… and dreamy. Perfect location for our photo shoot.

These guys really are SO incredibly happy together. It was hard to find a moment when they weren’t smiling from ear to ear. So great photographing amazing couples like these two!

I love these gorgeous ferns. How magical is that?

What a beauty Jocelyn is, such a gorgeous smile!

It’s actually pretty funny, Dave and I took these shots at totally different times while we were shooting the bride and groom separately around the gardens!! Maybe being married is making us think that same?! Who could resist a photo location like this! I stole away Jocelyn for this romantic shot and Dave was with Michel getting this cool groomsman shot. What an ethereal backdrop. It’s not often you see an orchid garden. Such a fantasy location!

To finish off the photo shoot we took a quick trip to the Singapore waterfront and this is where the real fun began.

Isn’t the city out of this world!! The building above was built to resemble a ship and the one below resembles a lotus flower. Because the city is still so young, the architecture is very innovative and modern.

While we were shooting, not only did we have a huge crowd of tourists surrounding us, haha, but we were also at the mercy of the rain. While we were waiting for the rain to stop, we grabbed this cute shot! Michel’s idea… very Singin’ In The Rain, don’t ya think!

The second day of the wedding took place at the Four Season’s Hotel Singapore. What an absolutely spectacular location for a wedding. Every time we shoot a wedding at the Four Seasons it’s always incredible. They are one of the worlds finest hotels and the first choice for celebrities for a reason!

Check out some of the amazing details from their wedding reception…

What an event! Almost 300 of their closest friends and family and perfect in every way…

Thanks so much to our lovely couple Jocelyn and Michel for having us fly all the way to Singapore to photograph one of the most important moments of your life. We’re so grateful you chose us to be there with you and cannot thank you enough for trusting us to document these memories. We wish you a life full of happiness and love!

We would like to send out a HUGE thank you for all our 2010 couples who took the time to provide a review on our WeddingWire sotrefront.

Recognition for the Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2011 is determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 750,000 WeddingWire newlyweds. Our past clients are among those that shared their experiences.

We stands among the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire community, representing quality and service excellence within the wedding industry. Awards were given to the top wedding professionals across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, and were based on the overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

Anyhow, enough about us! I’m super excited to share the engagement session I photographed yesterday. Meghan and Adam are an awesome downtown Toronto couple. They’re going to tie the knot this summer at the Muskoka Bay Resort… We can’t wait for it! Adam sells real estate and has the coolest website of any realtor I’ve seen.

Meghan came up with the idea to do a vintage engagement session and worked hard for the past week to find awesome outfits… As you’ll see, she put together some rockin combos.

We started the session in the bar in the King Edward Hotel – one of Toronto’s most glamorous wedding venues btw.

Check out the sweet wallpaper in the next shot.. gotta love how well suited this venue was for a vintage themed photo shoot.

As I mentioned earlier, it was -15 or something crazy as we left the King Eddy… We headed over to UofT to grab some very quick shots there…

To wrap up the session we headed over the Queen St West where we shop hopped to mix up the locations a bit. Check out the amazing colours we found!

I love looking for unique reflections during shoots… Isn’t this mirror the coolest?

Next we hit up a bar and I got a chance to do some cool shots of Adam. Right??

As we wrapped up the shoot I convinced Meg & Adam to let me make them bear with the cold a little longer so we could do one last really romantic shot. I shot just four frames and couldn’t be happier with this one.

Hope you’re all doing well – I’ll be sure to post some more wedding and engagement shoots from last year… We’ve been busy with the move.

Charlotte and I would like to take a moment to thank all our couples, friends, family and blog readers for your ongoing support over the past year. It means so much to us that so many of you take time to read our blog and leave comments.

We are so blessed to have a life so full of happiness – largely due to your support.

With our wedding only 7 weeks away we’re very excited about the trip down under and the year ahead! We look forward to sharing it with all of you!

Warm Holiday Wishes to you all! From Dave, Charlotte, Fritzi & Greta

Charlotte and I are proud to have been running our studio using 100% green electricity since we opened our doors in 2008.

Buying green power is an easy way to take action on climate change, help clean up our air quality and support the development of new renewable power generation facilities in Canada. All of Bullfrog’s power is sourced from renewable generation facilities that have been certified as low-impact by Environment Canada.

You can find out how it works here: www.bullfrogpower.com/howitworks

It costs less than a dollar a day for the average home and only takes about 10 minutes to sign up. You don’t need any special equipment or wiring. Plus, you can enter our promotional code (DAVE5412) to receive $25 off your Bullfrog Power residential bill. You’re welcome.

If you’d like to do your part, visit bullfrogpower.com to sign up.

Cheers, Dave

Dave and I are very excited about this post! I know we need to get more weddings up on the blog and we have so many beautiful wedding to post. We wanted to post this awesome sneak peek for you all first. Our couple Jasmine and Dave’s Royal York Hotel wedding, located here in Toronto, will have a double page feature in the upcoming issue of Wedding Bells Magazine! We’re also very excited to get the gorgeous shots of their wedding on the blog once the magazine hits the shelves.

Their wedding was even nick-named The Royal Wedding by their amazing wedding planner Cynthia Martyn, who made it all come together.  Fuscia Designs did a stunning job on the decor and are always such a pleasure to work with. Everything about Jasmine and Dave’s wedding was breath-taking, including the 5 foot tall gloriously designed Caketress wedding cake.

With all of this beauty, Dave and I were so honoured to be there to photograph all of the hard work and gorgeous detail. Stay tuned to the blog for the photographs of Jasmine and Dave’s stunning wedding day!

What’s painting with light you ask? It’s essentially what it sounds like… You photograph a dark scene with a long exposure and use torches or flashes to light the photograph one area at a time. The really cool part of this process is how the various light sources have different colours and affect the photo in different ways… The blues are from a camera flash, the yellows from a video light and the red tinted light is from a head lamp!

The photo above is on the ground floor of the building and the one below is half way up the fire escape.The tech specs for the shots are all slightly different, but if you feel like trying something similar, start at 100 ISO, F11 for 30 seconds and go from there

This final photo is my favourite of the set… I love the way the sky holds the orange tones of the city’s street lights.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the photos – I’m looking forward to trying some of these techniques in upcoming shoots

Leo and Maria booked us to photograph their gorgeous wedding next Summer, and when we talked about where we might do their engagement shoot they were both excited to shoot around their new house in Stoney Creek. I’ve put together a little video slide show of my favourite shots for them and I wanted to also feature some of them as images on the blog too.

First off, here’s the video if you’ve got a few minutes, if not, skip ahead and check out the photos below. Cheers.

Fall engagement photos always give an awesome range of colours, moods and lighting options in the pictures… I love having shots like these above where the light feels like the middle of Summer, then be able to jump right into more moody and monochromatic images like these shots below.

Leo & Maria did really well to find a local vineyard willing to let us use their property to do the engagement pictures… Some of you readers may already know the spot…. Puddicombe Estate Farms & Winery.

We all loved this little orchard. Super cute right?

As we wrapped up the shoot we grabbed this romantic photo of the two of them enjoying one last cuddle.

Can’t wait to photograph their wedding next year in Toronto & Vaughan… Gonna be awesome!!!

As soon as these two walked into our studio to meet us we knew they were going to be a LOT of fun to photograph… We were pleased to find out they found us after seeing Charlotte’s sister Tricia’s wedding pictures on Facebook!

For the engagement shoot I thought it’d be fun to bring in not only what was left of the Fall colours, but some of Toronto’s cooler and colourful buildings. We started the shoot down in The Toronto Exhibition Centre, then headed into The Liberty Village, finishing up in one of our favourite spots in Toronto, Queens St W.

Isn’t the wall in the next four photos one of the coolest you’ve seen?? So awesome.

As you can see both Andy and Lauren spent a lot of the shoot laughing – it’s so nice seeing two people so happy just hanging out together.

I loved these trees…

Not only do these two know how to have a lot of fun but they’re pretty good at looking damn sexy!

Well, that about wraps up my absolute favourites.. but wait, there’s still more! We’ve put together a little slide show for your viewing pleasure.

Check it out, we’d love to hear your comments and feedback below!

The whole week away was amazing! Every detail was perfect. I loved Joelle’s floral’s, vintage inspired wedding gowns and of course (a-hem) that incredible engagement ring seen above. Can you believe how beautiful that engagement ring is… Good work Todd! We have to say we enjoyed every moment. Joelle and Todd really treated us like we were a part of their wedding and were always warm and welcoming. Wedding photography is really an intimate thing. You’re getting up-close and personal on one of the most emotional, joyful days of a persons life so you really need to get to know your subjects in order to create something beautiful for them.

Joelle and Todd really looked so amazing on their wedding day! They were so happy and you can see the joy in their expression. The outdoor ceremony took place on the rooftop terrace overlooking the turquoise sea. The Royal Hideaway must be the best place for a destination wedding in Mexico. We love the Riviera Maya, it’s absolutely breathtaking!

What a gorgeous couple, and Playa del Carmen Mexico has to be the perfect spot for a destination wedding!!

During cocktail hour we took a quick stroll on the beach to give Joelle and Todd a moment relax and be together!

The Occidental Royal Hideaway is one of the prettiest resorts we’ve ever had the pleasure to photograph. Look at the beautiful fountains and all of the beautiful landscaping as our backdrop! It makes for beautiful photographs, it also helps that Joelle is an absolutley stunning bride, doesn’t it

It was so nice for Joelle and Todd to spend a little downtime together and soak in this very special moment before joining excited friends and family eager to congratulate the newlyweds!

What a picturesque spot for cocktail hour, wouldn’t you agree!

We also loved all of the vibrant reception details. The colours were so complimentary with the gorgeous Mexican landscapes.

What a night, filled with fun, food and fiestas!!

Joelle and Todd had the time of their lives! It was really nice that Joelle had another gorgeous wedding dress to slip in to later in the evening.

Thanks Joelle and Todd for choosing us to document your special time away in Mexico. We loved being a part of your day and getting to know your great friends and family! Congratulations to you both!

We also love Graydon Hall as a wedding reception venue located here in Toronto. We’ve been so lucky to shoot so many weddings there this year and always find it as visually stunning as it is charming.

I love these shots before the ceremony with Alison’s girls and especially this shot with her mom. Aren’t they adorable!

I love the look on this little guys face. Serious ring bearer determination!

Graydon Hall is the best, and with beautiful backdrops like this it adds elegance to every shot. Look at Alison’s mom looking so elated for her little girls big day!

The best ring bearer and flower girl ever! They got down the aisle without a hitch and looked super cute to boot!

Everyone’s breath was taken away as soon as they saw Alison in the doorway. What a stunningly beautiful bride. And such a proud father!

Although we were both shooting the ceremony below, we remotely triggered a camera from the balcony to capture the epic moment as Alison walked to her groom.

Look at how happy Jason is at the sight of his bride. You can see so much love, excitement and emotion in his eyes. It looks like he was dreaming of this moment for such a long time. What a beautiful moment.

The gardens at Graydon Hall are the perfect spot for an outdoor ceremony close to Toronto. Doesn’t the manor look so elegant in the background.

Such excitement to be finally man and wife! I love the energy in this shot!

Stealing a kiss after they say “I do”.

I shot this one at the same time as the one above. What can I say we love to get our angles!

Alison and Jason went inside for a quick moment to steal some time away together before the bridal session.

Don’t these guys look sharp! The bridal party added a lot of fun to our day, they all loved to joke around as much as Dave and I do.

We love our detail shots and we also love Pink Twig. They are an amazing floral team right here in Toronto and always do a bang up job! We caught Amy by surprise while she was working her magic. Great job guys!!

The first dance took place on the terrace as they were both serenaded. Such a lovely spot for a wedding.

After the first dance the guests were seated for a delicious dinner. I have to tell you it was fabulous, the chefs Graydon Hall hit it out of the park again!

During dinner the fun began. Alison and Jason’s MC was hilarious and came complete with pie charts, graphs and Alison and Jason Barbie dolls. I mean an Alison Barbie and Jason Ken doll… I think, lol!

After sunset we took a stroll outside and grabbed a shot with all of the glowing paper lanterns. Just magical isn’t it

Thanks so much to Alison and Jason for choosing us to photograph your wedding day. We loved every minute of it and hope you enjoyed your honeymoon away! Congratulations guys!