Vancouver Session Contest | Vancouver Wedding & Portrait Photographer

Kelsey I - Well, since I’m not married I think it would be super fun to have a “girlfriends” shoot with a couple of my friends. Some of my most memorable times are just laughing with my old best friends, sharing stories over a couple mimosas. How awesome would it be to get a professional photoshoot of those amazing memories that just never seem to be photo documented? :) I remember in highschool trying to do my own “friend photoshoots” with my best friend… I think it’s time to upgrade to the adult version!

Tina - I saw your contest posted on my friend J.Lynn’s Facebook status shortly after returning home from marrying my husband in Hawaii.  My husband Cory and I have a long distance relationship, and now a long distance marriage.  He lives in Oahu and I live in Vancouver. We had a lovely wedding in Oahu on February 25, 2012.  Sad to leave and be apart again, I loathed coming back to Vancouver.   However, according to plan, we are now living our day to day lives in our respective homes while we start the long immigration process so Cory can move to Vancouver Canada as a permanent resident.  We look forward to when we can finally live life as a “normal” married couple. 
Although we had some very talented photographers cover our wedding events in Oahu, we never had the opportunity to get engagement photos.  We would be so grateful to have an engagement photo session at home in Vancouver with you.  Given our circumstances, everything we’ve done has been backwards.  We planned our wedding before we were engaged. We got married before starting to plan our bachelor parties.  Hopefully, we’ll get our engagement photos with you sometime after we receive our wedding photos ;)
So you want to hear a funny story huh? Here it is.  We refer to this true story as The Great Fire of 2011.
Long distance relationships have their challenges. With technology, a long distance couple can stay connected and feel a part of each other’s day to day lives conveniently and inexpensively.  Cory and I do what couples in love do.  We talk for hours and stay in each other’s company while doing housework, homework, cook, or watch TV.  We’ll even *ahem*, have “private time” together.  All of this is done by our preferred method, FaceTime, on our respective Apple devices.  The distance is a challenge in our relationship but it hasn’t defeated us as a couple. 
Let me tell you about Cory.  He is quite the creative cook and our recent addiction to watching Epic Mealtime videos on YouTube inspired Cory to transform something unhealthy into something even more ridiculously unhealthy. His fascination with deep frying Twinkies became an obsession.  Whether deep frying them plain, coated with Bisquick batter, garnished with strawberry syrup or even served a la mode, I must admit they are sinfully delicious and irresistible.  His newest creations were making me want to fly over to Oahu and try them all.  Yes, it’s quirky things like these that made me fall in love with him even more.
One evening, feeling the urge for some “private time”, I was able to coerce Cory to the bedroom over FaceTime wink wink ;)  I won’t go into detail here but all I can say was that we were both quite happy with our session, and then… all of a sudden, a loud alarm went off.  I asked, “Smoke alarm? Cory, what’s going on?” His eyes lit up as he jumped out of the bed, quickly put on something decent, and ran out to the kitchen with me, via his iPod Touch, clutched in the palm of his hand.  He screamed, “OMG, the Twinkies!”  As in typical fashion, he placed me (iPod Touch) on the counter to keep me in the loop and in this particular case, to see the drama unfold.  I watched with astonishment the flames reaching 1.5-2 feet in the air from a pan of hot oil!  His roommates came in to the kitchen to assist.  Cory pulled the pan off the heat source but the flames continued to rage from the pan.  I tried to remain calm knowing that a hysterical fiancé on FaceTime would not help matters.  But, deep down inside I was praying that my fiancé was not going to go up in flames along with his house and roommates.  Cory, as calmly as he could, recalled out loud the fire and safety training he had learned while working on ships years ago.  Water was clearly ruled out as an option to put out this oil fire.  Cory doused the flames with a cup of flour.  A large cloud of black particles dispersed into the air! Bad idea.  I frantically told him, “smother the flames!”  Finally, a large towel thrown onto the flames put out the fire.  The smoke detector alarm stopped and the drama extinguished along with the fire.  After our adrenaline levels returned to normal and we recovered from the shock, we shared in a good chuckle.
We realized that we had just survived a long distance fire together – a fire ignited by a burning passion we had for one another – that started from a neglected pan of deep frying Twinkies!  Unscathed and now with a stronger bond, we are able to tell you this story of survival (although Cory, his roommates and I were the only ones that knew of this story until we shared it with you today).  We survived The Great Fire of 2011 and look at us now, we’re now married in 2012 and today Feb 25, is our one month wedding anniversary.
Please consider this story as an entry for an engagement session for Cory and me.  We hope you enjoyed this and we hope you pick us to be your winners

Gulnaz - This story isnt funny, but it definitely is interesting because we feel that there is a miracle attached to it. This story starts with a date, August 2nd. This date holds importance for many reasons which I am now about to disclose to you. In the year 1984, a boy was born on this very date, His name is Amby. Amby was the apple of a lot of people’s eyes and on his third birthday as he blew out the candles and perhaps made a wish a girl was born. This girls name is Gulnaz. Both of them grew up spreading love and joy to those around them not knowing that they would one day become the love and joy in eachothers lives. They grew up with dreams, goals, and aspirations and with all these things their lives fast forwarded to the year 2008. It was on August the 2nd of 2008, the day of their birthday, that they finally crossed paths. Something unspoken drew them to one another. Perhaps nothing needed to be said because both of them knew that there was something there. The rest is history and years have now passed and that unspoken bond has been given the name of an engagement and this summer this unspoken bond will transform into a marriage. Who wouldve known that this date could mean so much more. This date represents destiny, fate, and two souls that are meant for each other. That is our interesting story.

Steph Dietz - After 25 years on this earth, I am now chasing one of my dreams of being a model!! I look at all the magazines and amazing photographs, and I want that girl to be me! This is just going to be a hobby for me to begin as I just love being in photos and the whole photographic creativity put into the photos that I really want to be involved in something as such!
This photo shoot would give me a great head start in the right direction as you are an amazing photographer! And who knows, if I do by chance make it big someday, I will owe some credit to you!!
I really hope this dream comes true as I’m shooting for the stars!!

Geoff Barnes - I’m going to start by telling an absurd truth; I’m an absolute Adonis in the looks department. Seriously, I still receive telegrams from mythical places of the past asking me just how I managed to get to a 7-pack stomach. Women surround my home just trying to get a glimpse. So much so that when I leave the house I dress in a disguise resembling an obese, balding chipmunk just to avoid the attention.

Okay fine, the above is entirely untrue, but I really need to send my family back home some pictures of me ‘cos they haven’t seen me in years. I moved to London 7 years ago and the pubs have definitely changed my look. Now that I’ve got your attention, pick me!

Erika Scott - My husband and I met in Tofino. I was working at the bank and his crew were coming in to cash their cheques on a regular basis. He lived in Oregon and I fell head over heals for his signature! I know, sounds weird. But three months later and one close encounter where I just about had to call him over a cheque issued incorrectly he came in and signed a withdrawal slip. I looked at him and said ‘so that’s who you are’ not really meanin for anything to happen. Well, the next day he came in and invited the staff over for his official house warming party. My boss sent me as a representative. Upon arriving I had him on one hip and his father attached to my other hip deep in conversation. This man I now call my husband needed to run off and get washed up which was my cue to depart the party. Our first date was a catastrophe which is an entire other very funny story…….but we were married shortly after and now have three wonderful children. The only sad part is, we have no family or couple photos. I too am a photographer and am always the one on the other end of the lens!! Please please please pick me so that I can have some fantabulous images of the love of my life and myself!!

Aimee - Gary and I met unexpectadly in the summer of ’09 while bouldering outside. I’m incredibly grateful for his love, support and patience throughout our relationship – we balance each other well. We also adopted a shelter dog in Whistler a few months ago, he’s a great addition to our family and we’d love a photo session with him. Baloo is a gentle dog & is very photogenic =)

Kelly Swan - Well, my husband and I met in college. I was going out with someone else at that time, and my husband (then some random guy!) was all head-over-heels for me. Anyway, he tried every trick in the book to woo me, but I didn’t have it. We met years later through friends again to celebrate the millennium in Vancouver and hit it off. We’re now married but we never had an opportunity to capture our moments the way I’ve seen them captured by you. So I really hope you can do a session with us! Really! :)

Carissa Gagné - Well you wanted a funny story of my hubby and I for your contest. We met 12 years ago and I was in a foul mood. I had bought a computer for a specific function, was promised the same, took it home, did not perform what I needed. I called the support line and the manufacturer told me to go and see Spencer and gave me an address. So I drove there with my comp, walked in went to the back and asked are you Spencer, he said yes, I said fix this piece of $h8%. We went on our first date a year later and 3 weeks after that we moved in and been together ever since.

JK - Coming from Belfast, jenny and I met (as you do) over kebab on naan, late one unusually warm summers eve. It wasn’t until the next day, did I see how the dressing had dripped through and onto my shirt and jeans. Thinking all was lost I got a text 2 days later wishing me happy birthday and now . . . . . 4 years on, we’re still together and living in BC with our beautiful daughter.

What better way to celebrate our milestone & whisk her off to Vancouver than to earn our shoot by you?