This One King West wedding was one of the most emotional event I ever documented in my long Toronto wedding photographer career.
At the beginning of the wedding day I saw the groom cry when his mother showed up during his preparation.
The first look was also an opportunity for me to photograph the bride and groom a laughing and crying within seconds from seeing each other.
Even during the wedding ceremony and the cocktail hour the couple and their parents shed a few tears and shared laughters with the guests.
Is I expected, the reception was filled with genuine reactions that allowed me to capture candid moments that the bride and groom included in their wedding album.
More important than all, the love between the newlyweds was apparent.
As a side note, wedding photography allows a professional photographer to observe and document moments on the special day. Moments that the couple, the family and their guests will cherish forever.
Even though I had the opportunity to work with the couple during their wedding engagement photo shoot, I did not realize how intense they were. However, on the wedding day the bride and groom left their guards down and showed the love they have for each other.
This wedding album spread captures only a fraction of the moments I immortalized on the big day. My photography style is 90% photojournalistic and 10% directed.
I learned secret of capturing the perfect wedding photos from one of the great wedding photography professionals in the world: Joe Buissink.
During a wedding photography workshop in Toronto, Joe shared, besides his passion for wedding photography, some of his secrets.
The ingredient of his amazing photos is the fact that he always second shoots during the wedding day. According to him, he always hires lead photographers who can deliver high quality photos so Joe can become the second shooter.
Truth be told, I commit the sin of being always the lead photographer during the wedding day. I always assumed that my second shooter would focus on the moments and create beautiful candid images. Boy was I wrong!
Sadly, the Toronto wedding photography industry is plagued with individuals only want to make a quick buck while not putting the right amount of effort.
What I expect from a second shooters is to capture the reactions of the guests and family between the shots. In other words, while I take formal photos, I expect my second photographer to take candid photos.
Also, during the photo shoot, while I direct the bride and groom, I want my photographer partner to catch the split-second reactions of the couple. Often, those are the perfect wedding photos that the newlyweds love.
I haven't worked with a photographers outside the Greater Toronto Area, but the ones in the GTA fails to impress me.
Why so? All of professional photographers I hired had a second shooter mentality. While I don't mind being the lead photographer, I want my second shooter to think about creative shots so we can deliver the couple a large variety of photographs.
However, I find that photographers in Toronto are more interested in having dinner then in capturing the candid reactions of the participants of the special day.
Even worse, some of them proved disloyal to their employee (myself) and start promoting their own business during the big day.
I lost track of how many times my second photographer disappeared, only to find him chat with a wedding planner, the officiant, the waiters and so on. Obviously, work ethic is weak in the Greater Toronto Area.
But I digress! Let's get back to our special event.
In this wedding album spread, the photograph on the left shows the head table's reaction to the speech given by groom's mother.
In the foreground you can see the groom's mother giving the speech while the focus is on the head table in the background. The groom was wiping his tears when his mother talked about his childhood.
The photo on the right, in contrast, shows the flower girl, who put her head on the table obviously bored by the lengthy speech.
This emotional moment was captured during a wedding at One King West Hotel.
Location: 1 King St W, Toronto, ON M5H 1A1.
