Casual Winter Wedding at the John M.S. Lecky UBC Boathouse
Airika & Doug had a casual winter wedding at the John M.S. Lecky UBC Boathouse, in Richmond BC, back in January. I really loved shooting this wedding because it was really about two families coming together to celebrate love. Airika had been a single mom, living alone with her daughter, while Doug had been previously married and had children from a past relationship. Weddings like this remind me that our true families are the ones we choose. While second marriages certainly are not out of the ordinary this day and age, somehow people often feel like they should be celebrated less, or like they don’t have the right to make it a big event, and to that I say eff it. Love is the reason we are all here, and celebrating it is one of the few real joys we can share in this life.
I met Airika back in journalism school years ago, and all these years she has always supported my work and I couldn’t have been more honoured to document her wedding day for her.
There have been so many times I’ve heard couples entering a second marriage say that they don’t need all the fancy things, and I think that is just fine, I don’t think anyone needs them the first time around, but I DO think love should be celebrated however it comes to us in this life. The beautiful thing about marriage is that it’s the family we CHOOSE. For me, second marriages are about standing up and saying “Here I am, Im open now, I’ve endured a lot of the trials life has thrown at me, but my heart is open because I choose it to be, and Im choosing to co-create a life and a family with you”.
Over the years I’ve seen couples enter marriages for so many reasons, and having shot for over 8 years now, Ive sadly seem some of those marriages end over the years for many reasons (Im glad to say the VAST majority of our clients are still together!) With second weddings though, it often feels like a much more conscious choice. There is less social pressure (none of that, oh jeez why aren’t you two married yet?) It’s often a wholehearted decision, and that’s something I can get behind.
I get teary eyed when I think of the vows Doug made to Airika on their wedding day. Seeing how much her love touched his heart, and how open and vulnerable he was in that moment made me so grateful for the love I have in my own life. Sometimes I think that’s why I really ended up shooting weddings – maybe if I hadn’t I would forget to tell the people I love how much they mean to me. Seeing that kind of raw, honest love each weekend inspires me to love more fearlessly. Im so grateful to have been a part of this day.
Thanks for stopping by our blog! We are Brad and Kendra Coupland. We are a couple of award winning Vancouver wedding photographers who travel across Canada documenting weddings and love stories from coast to coast. We have also shot destination weddings around the globe, and our photographic travels have taken us France, to Indonesia, to Cuba, to Barbados and all across North America. We have been ranked as two of the Top Twenty Wedding Photographers in Canada by the Professional Wedding Photographers of Canada, have won awards from the prestigious Fearless Photographers Association, we have been the recipient of the Couple’s Choice Award from Wedding Wire a whopping 5 times, and recently were a two time finalist at the 2015 BC Wedding Awards. We are now booking for 2017, but still have a limited amount of space available for 2016 weddings. If you’d like to learn more about our services and products don’t be shy to inquire. You can reach us by clicking the contact button above, or emailing us atinfo@lovetreephotography.ca. We look forward to hearing from you!