S & J Engaged – Ottawa Wedding Photographers

S and J will be married at the Courtyard Restaurant in the Byward Market on June 21st on the summer solstice. Starting our day together at the Chateau Laurier and making our way along Sussex to the Market for the Wedding and reception among their closest friends and family…will make for an elegant, sophisticated and fun wedding in a way that will reflect the wonderful spirit of this amazing couple. I cannot wait to see S in her Vera Wang wedding dress on her big day nor the immense 25kg of candy bar! Defiantley a day we are all looking forward to…thank you S adn J so much for choosing me to capture your day…

Inspired by a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, I wanted to create a session that was inspired by bridges. Whether they are bridges between hands, lines across a staircase, locks that bridge across canals or the bridges we build between each other and among our friends and family as we prepare to share our lives together…this session is inspired by what bridges symbolize. I encourage you to read about how these two finally found each other at the bottom of the post…

THEIR STORY

What she says: I noticed J at school. He was in second year, i was in third.  He was super cute and very quiet – i don’t remember when i first saw him but i’ll never forget the first time we talked.  It was brief – over an exchange of hayden tickets – like one sentence or something.  We had different circles of friends and i thought he was way too cute (and much too cool) to be interested in me. I often sat near a window and on occasion I would notice him looking in my direction but chalked it up to boredom and the view outdoors, certainly not me.  Many months passed and I crushed away in secret.  The night after our last exam we all met in the market to celebrate.  After my second glass of wine I let it slip to his classmate that I was interested in him, who in turn let it slip to a close friend of his who in turn let it slip to J.  We shared a cab, he offered me his coat in the rain. At some point during the night I was cornered by the close friend and we shared a middle school moment – ‘do you like him?  like, like him like him?  because he likes you.’  no way!?  ‘yes, totally! for like the past year.’  he kissed me that night on a friend’s balcony, asked for my number and wrote it on the only piece of paper he had – a five dollar bill.  still has it.  the next day was my birthday, he phoned to wish me a happy one and six years later proposed on that same day.

What he says:
The algonquin campus downtown held the architecture, computer technology and civil engineering programs in addition to our biochemistry program.  This meant that about 95% of the population was male, not great odds for a 21 year old.  It was a nerd prison.  However, for some reason that 5% seemed to exist exclusively in my program.  Being a fairly small program, and following the first year’s attrition, the class was composed of several cliques each conspiring to compare assignments, complete labs and research information.  S was not a part of my clique, or even my year, and our groups mingled little.  This meant I had very little intel to go by let alone strike up a conversation, and was reduced to blatant staring across classrooms during the few classes we began to share.  I remember clearly S and I in a circle of four or five students chatting, intensely self-aware trying to be clever and entertaining, to just actually talk to her and not come off as weird.  I remember making her laugh.  I don’t remember if I shared this secret crush with the others in my group, or if they simply figured me out.  The first semester passed and I enlisted a spy, M, who was paired up with S for Plant Tissue Culture lab.  M relayed to me that S had a boyfriend, tall with a funny dog.  Who was I to compete?  So I continued pining, and as time went on we chatted more and more.  Eventually the end of the second year arrived, and most of the class got together for drinks after the final exam.  It was that night that M spoke to her counterparts in S’s clique, and excitedly told me that S liked me too!  I didn’t believe her.  It was like being told that after a year in prison the door was never locked.  It just didn’t compute, like some cruel joke, taunting you with what you want most.  Except it was true.  We walked down empty streets chatting, watched a cop bust some guy from a balcony, touched hands and kissed.  I wrote her number down on the only thing I had, a $5 bill.  I will never spend it.

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April 8, 2010 | Categories: engagement, weddings | Tags: engagement, weddings | Leave a comment