it’s always awesome when my friends get married. two people that i love, they met, they fell in love over the last five years, they grew together in relationship & on saturday, they stood in front of all their family and committed their lives to one another. foreverrrr. beautiful. i wrote a little bit of maclean & erin’s story in their engagement session i photographed a few months ago. and may 21, 2011 was their wedding day! erin is not only my friend, but my neighbour & i had a thirty second commute in the morning to shoot her getting ready images. erin is too much fun to photograph: not only is she stunningly gorgeous but the best part is, i don’t think she knows exactly how gorgeous. she’s constantly making funny/awkward faces and is not the least bit pretentious about her beauty.

maclean & his eight groomsman [biggest bridal party yet!] got ready at his parent’s house and then met up with erin & her six bridesmaids at erin’s house. they shared a first look [maclean is a wedding videographer and knows all about the best way to plan a wedding timeline. score.] before we drove to north vancouver for photos pre-ceremony. it was so surreal photographing erin & maclean seeing each other for the first time that day. i just loved it.

unfortunately we were dealing with rain all, day, long on saturday, hence the first look indoors! but the bridal party didn’t mind one bit. as mentioned, this was the largest bridal party i’ve photographed, but what made it even awesomer [because i already love tons of people in bridal parties] was that i knew 80% of them. not all personally, but at least faces and names. photographing friends. so great.

after two hours of photos, the ceremony took places at highlands united church in north vancouver. there were familiar faces all over: connections from church, school, our neighbourhood. ;) i wasn’t the least bit surprised to see tons of sweet details, knowing erin & mac and their creative style. check out their invitation, which i’ve blogged before and their ceremony program.

okay, VOWS. this was my favourite part of the wedding day. rather than go the whole “repeat after me” route, erin & maclean wrote their own vows. maclean started, erin, when i met you, i was a skate park rat and you were a babe. i thought you were way out of my league. and i still think that. i never understood when people said they could love someone more each and every day, but now i do. i love that we are always laughing together. always. and we are the only ones that think we’re funny. i love that we act like children together. i wouldn’t have it any other way. erin looked back at mac and shared, maclean, when i first met you, i thought wow. what a gorgeous guy. too bad he’s not older. everybody laughed, as erin is two years his senior and maclean was still in high school when they met. but you graduated, and you got older, and we started dating. i still can’t believe you chose me. one more funny thing from the vows: they promised to watch at least one lord of the rings every month together. bahah. that would be a really really huge sacrifice for me. but they? they are obsessed. ;)

at the grouse mountain reception, erin & maclean decorated beautifully: a forest-themed wonderland. huge vases filled with floating candles, rocks and twigs and moss everywhere: shout-out to karlee & her team at wedding design studio for all their hard work. check out their website & blog. all the stationary was elegant and done oh-so-beautifully [by another friend of mine, actually!] — a few more details: erin is a self-proclaimed cookie monster so they skipped the wedding cake and had a cookie bar instead. great call. maclean has tons of talented, musical friends [as he’s the drummer in a band called maclean] and a bunch of them sang and played all night while guests danced. finally, maclean and erin made two sweet videos: one was a bridal party video, where they introduced each bridal party member with memories from their childhood and interview clips. sooo much more interesting than the typical “this is how i know so and so,” — loved it!

bahah, i love that second to last dancing photo. they are ridiculous. if you’d like to see more images from erin + maclean’s day, check out the slideshow HERE. enjoy!