ulrike & craig’s first date was over six years ago — a cup of coffee and a rollerblading adventure was the plan. ulrike ambitiously decided to rollerblade to the coffee shop [why not, right?] and the distance was a little more than what she expected. she arrived forty-five minutes late, sweaty and out of breath, to find a patient craig. he later admitted he was almost about to leave but decided to hang around for a few more minutes. ulrike writes, my first impression of craig was that he was patient, tall, handsome, genuine, interesting, serious yet funny, smart, a great rollerblader and a little bit crazy… wearing shorts in the winter!

craig is an engineer, working full-time [and living part-time] in calgary and ulrike is two years into a five year medical residency in vancouver. craig flies “home” to vancouver every thursday evening and back again every monday morning — unless of course, ulrike is pulling a 80+ hour workweek and then their time apart extends until the next weekend. although life the last two years has not allowed ulrike + craig to be “together” all the time, they have managed to grow in love and relationship. they truly enjoy life together: having traveled to south africa [where ulrike was born], the philippines, turkey, syria, guatemala, nicaragua, and all over north america. craig and his family are originally from australia, so both ulrike + craig’s childhoods included regular trips back and forth between their home countries and canada. after the competition of ulrike’s residency, they hope to both be back living and enjoying life in calgary.

i am pumped for their september 2012 whistler wedding. it’s going to be exciting to celebrate with a small group of their friends and family [that have flown in from all over!] — and of course, i would love another excuse to photograph these two. enjoy!

carly & doug’s very first email to me about their august 25, 2012 backyard wedding included the following three facts — “we met in high school, we are nineteen years old and we both love slurpees.” ha! i love it. carly’s first memory of doug is in a ninth grade bible class, he was confident [i was not in the least]… and he smelled good. doug’s first memory was the same year, noting that he was very talkative and carly was a little harder to draw out of her shell. by tenth grade, their groups of friends became the same, and these two started a relationship. they’ve been together ever since and despite a “rough beginning” knew they wanted to be with one another for life. one more tidbit before we move onto the pictures — doug wrote that his favourite things about carly are: the way she treats people around her, the way she treats me, her values and morals & ravishing good looks. so great. ;) excited to celebrate with these two in a few months!

it was the very last semester of karen & spencer’s undergraduate degrees at UBC. spencer was completing an english literature degree and karen was an english/history major herself. after four years at the university, these two finally shared a class — two of them, in fact! one day, karen sat down and joined a conversation, introducing herself to a boy named spencer and the friend beside him. karen & spencer sat together in each of their classes from then on… and a month later, spencer told karen he wants to be more than friends. it was their first date on valentine’s day 2004 that started it all! ;)

spencer & karen have been together ever since that day, over eight years ago! they are planning a july wedding at one of my favourite venues of life: fraser river lodge in agassiz. [previous weddings i've photographed there? rebecca and adam, veronica and henry.] this couple is a ton of fun — they love traveling [serious travel. no vacationing here -- backpacking is preferred!] and camping and yoga and concerts and trying new things. they have the most fun when working on projects together — like planning a big trip, decorating their home and now, planning an awesome wedding that they hope will be a mix of outdoorsy + vintage chic.

i loved exploring the area of cambie village with spencer & karen yesterday evening! although they have now moved, they lived together in an apartment here for five years. it very much still feels like home to them and i can see why. such a neat area with a plethora of restaurants and coffee shops. enjoy!