This One King West event is one of the most emotional weddings I ever photographed. On that special day, the bride and groom expressed a variety of emotions ranging from wild laughter to tears. Sometimes the emotions changed in a matter of seconds, like in the photos captured on this album spread.
In these two photos, taken in the bridal suite located on the 45th floor of the hotel, the bride is waiting for the groom to come. She is nervous and holds her eyes close in suspense. I usually have the groom wait for his bride. However, the groom told me she is more important so he will go after her. I was impressed by his noble gesture.
In the left image we can see a nervous bride in the foreground. She is slightly out of focus and as I immediately noticed the groom was shaking and broke down in tears when he saw his future wife.
As usually, I like creating a bit of suspense so the couple give me genuine emotions I capture for them.
In this case, I postponed the moment when the bride and groom saw each other and that made the couple extremely nervous. As a result, they broke in tears when they saw each other...
In the right image the groom is smiling, anticipating the moment when he sees his wife to be. The framing, composition, colours are the same. The only change in the second image is the groom's expression
As a Toronto wedding photographer, I learned to simplify the way I shoot and to streamline my post wedding workflow. As such, a few years ago I switched to prime lenses. When I approach such a scene on a wedding day, I have two options. I either shoot with a 35mm lens or a 85mm one. If I am taking an environmental portrait of the bride and groom I use the 35mm and if I want to focus on their emotions I use the 85mm.
Sure enough in this case I wanted to capture the couple's reactions, so I used my 85mm lens.
To emphasize the couple's emotions I added a vignette so that the viewer of the photos focus only on the bride and groom and disregard any potential distractions.
The two photos on this album spread were taken in the bridal suite on the 35th floor of One King West Hotel in downtown Toronto.
Location: 1 King St W, Toronto, ON M5H 1A1.
