Here are some portraits from Catherine and Alex’s wedding this weekend at Pavillon Jamique in Parc Jean Dapeau:

Happy Valentine’s day from all of us here at Beauitofot Photography to all of you love birds out there! And congratulations to all of you who will call February 14th 2013 their proposeversary!

A lot of photographers use the term photojournalist, but what does that word mean? In a nutshell, a photojournalist is a photographer that can tell a story with a photograph by evoking an emotion, or capturing a spontaneous moment where something important happened. Here are a few photos where I’ve tried and hopefully I’ve succeeded in doing that:

This year’s wedding season started early as last weekend was the first wedding of my 2013 season and I am right back into the swing of things. It’s the greatest feeling in the world when you do what you love, and your clients love you for what you do.I fell really blessed.

This wedding took place at Club Saint James in downtown Montreal. It was my first wedding at this awesome venue, and everyone there was really nice and professional. Not to mention the couple who are probably some of the most laid back – easy going- people you’ll ever meet. Oh and as Reverend Bonnar put it during the ceremony, they are easy on the eyes too.

Here are some photos from this very classy wedding:

What is the Trash-the-Dress session? Is it a passing fad or is it becoming a major staple in wedding photography? Should you do it, or would you prefer not to mess up the dress that you’ve probably spent a lot of money on?

Well, I’ll just say that it is probably the most sought after photo session in the wedding photography industry at the moment. Why? Many reasons. Whenever a bride tells me that she will never do such a thing as dirty her beloved wedding dress, I always ask her, what do you plan to do with it. Amazingly, most bride’s haven’t really thought about the answer to that question. Most of them haven’t thought beyond putting it in a bag and hanging it in the closet.

The reality is, if you do just that, I mean hang it in the closet, it will start to fall apart over the next few years, discolor, and in some cases literally disintegrate. To properly store the wedding dress, the bride has to have it professionally dry-cleaned and sealed to prepare it for a long period of storage in order to preserve it in all its glory. Once a bride really thinks about doing this, then I ask her; if you are going to have it professionally cleaned, then why not get a little more out of it before you do that. After-all, you’ve spent quite a bit to purchase it, so why wear it only once when you can put it on again and get more mileage out it of- more bang for your buck so to speak.

Amazingly, once a bride thinks about it a little, most of them come back to me saying they want to do this session. It just makes no sense not to do it!

There’s also another very important reason why I recommend the trash the dress photo session. It is an amazing way to insure that you will have incredible photos at the best location and at the best time of year to capture them. A lot of weddings take place early in the spring or in the summer season. What if you could have the photos from your wedding day in the spring, and then have photos taken during the fall with all the beautiful colors that season has to offer. Or suppose your wedding is taking place somewhere far from the city, and although you’d love to get some shots at the Old Port, your planning does not allow for it and you don’t want to keep your guests waiting at the reception hall. The trash-the-dress session is a great plan B, where we set up a date shortly after the wedding day, when we know the weather is going to be perfect at a location that you want to take the photos, and at your ideal time of the year. A few days before the shoot, we check the weather and if they’re calling for rain, we simply postpone the date.

To me, this session is so important that I include it in two of my three wedding packages. In fact 9 out of ten couples I photograph go with a package that includes a TTD session. I even throw in an album-upgrade plus a large print in that package to insure that the couple will be able to fit some of those incredible photos in their wedding album and have a beautiful large print from the session hanging on their wall.

Here are some images from the last photo session I shot a few days ago:

Thank you Marie-Claude and Jean-Sebastien for being such a joy to work with on this beautifully classic fairytale wedding. Despite the thunder storm, we still managed to get some amazing wedding photos. I especially enjoyed the party segment of the day with a lot of crazy fun loving guests which made for some awesome spontaneous and candid shots.

A special thanks to Jaime Korey and her team from Over-Top-Events who transformed the reception tent setting and decor into something that is out of this world. I also would like to thank the folks at djuniversal, who set the fun/party mood of the night.

Here are some of my favorite shots from that amazing day:

I post those photos on the Beautifoto facebook page to allow the couple to tag themselves which in turns gives all their families and friends access to see the photos and they too can enjoy them.

In case you haven’t discovered my facebook page, I invite you to take a look and check it out for yourselves. While you’re there, do leave a comment or two on the photos you like. If you like the page, then by all means, click on the “like” button to always stay up to date on my latest work. Thanks and I look forward to reading your comments!

Here’s the link to the Beautifoto facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/beautifoto

And here’s the sneak peek look at the latest wedding which I shot last weekend.

I had the pleasure to be Julia and Simon’s wedding photographer last weekend which took place at Chateau Vaudreil West of Montreal. One of the things I love most about doing what I do is that I get to know a lot about couples on their wedding day that I end up knowing them on a personal level. I wanted to share this couple’s special story with you and it goes like this:

In February 2009, Simon took on a 6-months work contract in Chengdu, China to help train a team of new hires at Ubisoft’s newest studio. It was on March 2, 2009, Julia’s first day in the company, that they both met. During Simon’s remaining time in Chengdu, the pair fell for each other. Simon was hesitant about starting a relationship knowing that he would have to go back to Montreal when his contract ended. In addition, office rules forbade trainer/trainee relationships.

In the year following Simon’s return to Montreal (July 2009), Julia and him wrote to each other regularly, chatted through MSN and Facebook, and eventually started making calls and video chats via Skype. For a few months, they entertained the idea of Simon returning to visit Julia in Chengdu, but it was only on June 25th, 2010 that this idea became a reality.

During this brief visit to Chengdu, Julia & Simon got a glimpse of what it meant to be a real couple. They decided to take on the challenge of a long distance relationship… a VERY long distance relationship.

Every morning and every evening, they would chat for an hour on Skype while one would walk to work in the morning and the other would get ready for bed in the evening.

In October 2010, they planned a trip for Julia to come spend Christmas with Simon’s family in Monrreal. Unfortunately, a month later, they got news that Julia’s Canadian Visa Application was denied. The couple quickly put together another plan that involved Simon flying back to China once again for 3 weeks during the Holidays, however they chose to stop in several destinations this time around, including Shanghai, Sanya, and a final stop in Chengdu.

On December 31, 2010 as Julia and Simon were in their hotel room in downtown Chengdu, getting ready to meet their friends for New Year’s Eve celebrations, Simon got down on one knee and asked Julia to marry him, to which she said yes.

On January 7, 2011 their long distance relationship routine resumed. In February, they began the long and tedious process of filling the immigration forms and putting together all necessary documents. It would take 6 months before getting an answer.

In the meantime, they continued talking daily over Skype on their walk to work. Rain or shine, they never skipped a day. In June 2011, Simon’s father had been planning a trip for the whole family to France. He got the idea of inviting Julia to meet them there. Having already been burnt once by a visa refusal, Julia and Simon were apprehensive, but they gave it a try anyways. To their surprise, it was accepted. On August 16, in Charles de Gaulle airport, Julia met Simon’s family for the first time. For the next 2 weeks, Simon’s family got to know Julia as they all traveled together around France.

In early November 2011, Simon received news concerning Julia’s immigration application. It was accepted. After over a year of long distance relationship, Julia could finally travel to Canada as a Permanent Resident.

On November 24th, Simon greeted Julia at Montreal’s Dorval airport. It was a surreal moment.

On December 23, 2011, a few days shy of their one year engagement anniversary, Simon invited Julia to a Cirque Du Soleil show. On their way out, the air was cold and it began to snow. Simon asked Julia to pull out his hat from his backpack. Instead, she found a gift bag. Simon asked her to take out the bag and look inside. Inside she found a small silver jewelry box. As he had done nearly 1 year ago, Simon got down on one knee and repeated the words “Will you marry me?” A new ring was slipped onto Julia’s finger. The purpose was to recreate the moment in a more spontaneous and magical way than the first proposal in their hotel room in Chengdu.

The following 6 months between January and June 2012 were incredibly busy with the wedding planning, family gatherings, outings with friends, and unbelievable memories as a couple, happy to finally be living together in the same city.

What a romantic story!

The couple celebrated their wedding with their friends and family at Chateau Vaudreil’s beautiful garden overlooking the water on a beautiful sunny day. Julia’s parents could not be their physically. Instead they got to experience the whole thing live via a skype connection over the iphone. Amazing what can be achieved with technology nowadays!

I put together a slideshow of my favorite shots from the day here: http://vimeo.com/beautifoto/juliaandsimon

Here are some more of my favorite shots from this beautiful wedding:

Violinists: Trio Da Capo
Band: Cheers Entertainment
Cake: Sophie Sucrée
Cake topper: 2CloneMe
Decorations: Casa D’Eramo
Videographer: La V Cinema

Once again I teamed up with the creative genius behind Bombance events planning; Audray Blais whose ability to put the right people together is quite uncanny. The team consisted of Virginie Paré for make up and hair styling, Emilie Bibaud of CHIC BIBI who provided head wear and dresses, Kim Tuyen Pho of The le Dress who also provided some of the vintage dresses, and of course the fabulous models: Krystal, Mim Côté & Roody Renelus. We shot on location at different locations around the Old Port including one of Montreal’s best bistros, Vallier Bistro et Comptoir.

Here are the photos from this awesome photo session: