Strathmere Garden House Summer Wedding

Two adventurous souls tied the knot with an Ottawa Wedding on 35mm film photography

This was my first time shooting in the Garden House at Strathmere and I must say, I absolutely LOVED it! Strathmere has always been a beautiful place but getting to experience golden hour in a room just full of windows and flooded with light was something else.. Before I get into it, I have to start by sharing this couple’s story because it’s just so precious!!

In Steph’s words….

“Alastair and Steph are a true "Tinder-ella" story. We met on Tinder in September of 2015, after our friends encouraged us to join the app. Our profile pictures were well matched with pictures of us hiking, scuba diving and traveling. We decided to go on a hike to Mary's Point for our first date and it ended up being a seven hour adventure. It was a super moon that night, so the tides were incredible. Steph accidentally forgot her hiking boots in Alastair's truck (true story!) so we ended up having date number two before Al left for a month of rugby in England. We kept in touch while he was gone and arranged to have date number three the day after he got home, on Halloween.

Since then we've traveled to both ends of the country - visiting Alastair's family in British Columbia and hiking in Newfoundland. We've spent time exploring shipwrecks in Tobermory, ON and hiking in National Parks.

After two years of commuting between Moncton and Fredericton, Alastair was posted to Petawawa where Steph joined him a few months later. We've enjoyed making our house a home and welcomed Harley into our little family soon after.

In October 2018, we traveled to Nepal while Alastair was on leave from deployment. While hiking the Annapurna Circuit, Alastair got down on one knee at 5416 meters of elevation. It was cold, and there wasn't much oxygen, but Steph said yes!”

Getting ready at Strathmere’s Schoolhouse

The ladies spent the morning at the school house preparing for the big day. I spent about 30 minutes playing with details before hopping into action shots. I hope you guys know how much I had to contain myself on not posting every single image in this blog post, cause holy cow I love them all. From the absolute prettiest details, to the most curious flower girl, to an emotional first look with her dad; I was honored to capture every bit of it.

In case you’re curious, I was shooting a 35mm film called kodak portra the whole day (as usual). My go to is portra160 for all outdoors and use with flash. A higher ISO film is mixed in for natural light indoor shots; portra400 is my go to for indoor details. In this case I brought all the beautiful details to the upstairs bedroom in the schoohouse beside a bright window to get this stunning natural light at the perfect angle. Steph’s grandmothers pearls in their original coffin jewelry box were the only exception; there was a perfect little streak of light coming into the main room downstairs, so I dragged one of those purple armchairs into it as a backdrop. Won’t that make a stunning print?! I love looking for these little details. The last set of 4 images from the reveal with her parents were shot with flash (Nikon SB-25 is my usual go to) as the main floor was dimly lit.
The guys got ready nearby at an air bnb, where my lovely second shooter Hilary covered the events there!

The ceremony took place under the bright summer sun, with portraits following after. I’m still in awe of the beautiful sunshine that came through these windows into the gardenhouse!!! How beautiful is this light?? I couldn’t resist taking some fun shots with such stunning light.

The historic Inn provided a wonderful place for family portraits

I absolutely adore the intricate windows in this building, they make for stunning light and a beautiful background. The first row of formal portraits were taken with the aid of a fill flash, the remainder relied on stunning natural light streaming inside (mix of portra 400&160 - can you tell which were shot on what film??), and then of course the sunny outdoor shots.

Golden Hour Wedding Portraits

We snuck outside again part way through dinner to catch some more portraits at golden hour making for a very happy photographer :)

First dances of my dream under string lights & sunsets

Okay I’ve gotta be honest here; I usually don’t shoot much during the dances. Typically I take about 4 essential shots of each set of dances, relax, and get my second shooter to step up to catch any fun anomalies that pop up. This was not the case here. Holy COW guys! I am in loveeee with this dance floor. The timing just so happened to be perfect that the first dances were at twilight with some colour still in the sky. ABSOLUTE HEAVEN with those little Edison bulbs strung everywhere and I need to make it ridiculously clear how impressed I am with this little detail, congratulations goes to Strathmere for making first dances even more inspiring.

Gah! In. Love.

AND THEN. Yes, it does keep getting better! The grooms brother played an incredible song for his first dance with their mom. I have never seen a mom have more fun or be more proud of her children all in one wonderful experience. I frickin love getting to watch these human interactions, it’s SO beautiful.

We finish off the end here with flash portraiture; at some points I was shooting both an FM2 with portra 800 and no flash, and another with portra 160 and flash, until it got too dark to shoot without flash. Those twilight images with their beautiful grain make me extremely happy.

As do happy miniature humans dancing in bow ties (you’re welcome for including that one).

<3 Kris