Weddings · Canada · Photography
A promise made
in front of each other
Documentary and editorial wedding photography, across Canada. Three collections at one price in every province, with vertical social reels and film prints in every one and travel quoted openly on top. Destination weddings too, anywhere outside the United States, quoted against the country and the date.
Toronto · Montréal · Vancouver
Why this way
A wedding is the last ceremony most people take part in, so I photograph it as one
The vows are a vow. The walk down the aisle is a crossing. The moment a parent lets go of a hand is a transfer of something with no other name. I work for that layer, and the beautiful frames come out of it rather than the other way around.
I photograph the room, not just the two of you, the people who came, the ones who cried, the table that would not sit down. A wedding is witnessed, and the witnesses belong in the record.
I stay out of the way until staying out of the way stops helping, no repositioned blessings, no walking back up the aisle. Then twenty minutes of real direction, where direction is the kindness.
The day is built backwards from the light, sunset is the only fixed point in a Canadian wedding and it moves by six hours across the year. Everything else is arranged around it.
And it comes back whole, the day in order, start to finish, including the quiet parts a highlight reel leaves out. On a date written into the contract.
How the day runs
Four movements, built backwards from the light
The morning, while it is still quiet
Two rooms if you are in two rooms, which is the moment a second photographer stops being optional. Details first, while the room is still tidy and the light is still coming through the window.
The ceremony, uninterrupted
Whatever the tradition, I have asked in advance which twenty minutes you would be heartbroken to lose, and I am standing where those happen. A ceremony stopped for a better angle is a worse ceremony.
Family, then the twenty minutes that are yours
Twelve groups, capped, from a written list, with one loud relative per side calling names. That takes twenty-five minutes instead of fifty, and the fifty comes out of your portraits.
The room, once it goes dark
Speeches, the dances that matter, the people who stayed. Coverage that ends before the dancing is the most expensive economy in this business, and I will tell you so before you book it.
What is included
Eight things that are in every collection
Six continuous hours
The floor of every collection. Eight on Signature, ten on Legacy.
Vertical social reels
Cut from the day and sent in the first week, long before the gallery, while everyone is still asking to see something.
Film prints on the night
Real prints handed to your guests before they go home, while the gallery is still weeks away.
A timeline that survives
Built backwards from sunset, with one deliberate block of slack that absorbs the whole morning's drift.
A written family-photo plan
Twelve groups and two callers, agreed before the day. This is the single largest block of time a big wedding gets back.
A preview in 48 hours
Thirty frames while the day is still in your head. Next day on Signature, 24 hours on Legacy.
The full gallery, dated
Three weeks, on every collection. The date is in the contract, not in an email.
One price, wherever it happens
A collection costs the same in every city. Travel stays separate, uses the lowest practical route and drops when regional dates can be grouped.
In stillness
Photographs
Edited to what the room felt like, not to a preset that will date in three years. Grain, low light, and the space between people who have known each other a long time. Printed to be held in thirty years rather than scrolled past in thirty seconds.
In motion
Film
Vertical social reels in every collection, in the first week. A colour-graded feature film in every collection: one minute on Signature, three on Legacy. Real film too, two rolls on Signature and four on Legacy, processed and scanned. And prints handed to your guests on the night, so people leave holding something from the day.
Selected work
A few pages from the album
The experience
One photographer, from the first call to the finished album
There is no studio behind this and no assigned shooter. The person who answers your first email is the person standing in the aisle, the person who edits every frame, and the person who sends the gallery. A portfolio built from three people’s work tells you nothing about who turns up.
The planning is the part nobody advertises and it is where the day is won. A timeline built backwards from sunset, a family-photo list capped at twelve groups, a named covered location if it rains, and a venue I have walked in daylight because I arrive the day before.
Then I stay out of the way. I will not interrupt a blessing to reposition someone and I will not ask you to walk back up the aisle. The only part of the day I direct is the twenty minutes of portraits, in a place I have already looked at, in the light we planned around.
A call, a timeline, a session, a plan
Documentary, with twenty directed minutes
Clips in week one, the gallery on a date
The quiet doubt
You can have the documentary day and the photograph your mother wants
The worry about a documentary photographer is that the formal frames get lost: the grandparents, the two families together, the one portrait that ends up on a wall. They do not, because those are planned rather than improvised. Twelve groups from a written list, twenty-five minutes, one loud relative per side calling names. Getting that part organised is exactly what buys back the hour where nobody is being organised at all.
The family frames are planned, not hoped for
The portraits take twenty minutes, not ninety
The rest of the day nobody is arranged at all
What it costs
Three collections, and one price wherever you marry
Signature is C$3,000 in Montréal, in Toronto, in Vancouver and in a field in Saskatchewan. The city does not move the number, because the work does not change. Travel stays separate, is kept lean through early booking and is reduced or waived when another regional date already covers the trip.
In their words
I do not publish invented pull quotes. The reviews page is screenshots of what couples actually sent, in the app they sent it in.Read them
Where the vows are spoken
Three cities, one photographer
I · Québec
Montréal
Montréal, the Laurentians and the Eastern Townships
See Montréal →
II · Ontario
Toronto
Toronto, the GTA and Southern Ontario
See Toronto →
III · British Columbia
Vancouver
Vancouver, the North Shore and the Sea-to-Sky corridor
See Vancouver →
· British Columbia
Whistler
Whistler, Squamish and the Sea-to-Sky corridor
See Whistler →
· British Columbia
Tofino
Tofino, Ucluelet, Victoria and Vancouver Island
See Tofino →
· Alberta
Banff
Banff, Lake Louise, Moraine Lake and Canmore
See Banff →
· Alberta
Jasper
Jasper, Maligne Lake and the Icefields Parkway
See Jasper →And anywhere else in Canada, from the Eastern Townships to Whistler and Vancouver Island, with each region’s number published rather than quoted after you commit.
Is your date still open?
Peak Saturdays usually go nine to eighteen months out, and off-season and weekday dates open up much later. Send the date, the city and a rough guest count and you will have a real answer inside two business hours.
i@armanarai.com