Deer Meadow Farm
Alysia & Josh's Wedding

Getting Ready

I arrived to Josh first — hotel room, quiet morning, the particular composure of a groom who has already made his decision and is simply waiting for the day to begin. He was adjusting his blue tie in the window light, the grey three-piece suit already on, and he had this calm about him that I find in grooms who are not nervous, only ready. We didn't need long. A few frames by the window and I knew the day was going to be good.

Alysia was getting ready at the farm itself — in a room inside the barn that smelled like warm wood and the particular energy of bridesmaids who have been together since morning. The powder blue dresses were everywhere. Sunflowers in every corner. Alysia had made the invitations herself — hand-assembled, hand-addressed — and a set of them was still on the table beside her shoes and her ring. There was something about the handmade quality of every detail in that room that told you exactly what kind of day this was going to be.

Her gown was hanging in the stairwell of the barn — white lace against the exposed wood, the light coming through a small window behind it. One of those images that you don't plan; you just see it and stop moving and press the shutter.

The Ceremony at Deer Meadow Farm

The ceremony space at Deer Meadow Farm sits within the birch forest — and when I say within it, I mean the trees are part of the room. White wooden benches arranged along a natural grass aisle, the canopy of birch and poplar overhead, the whole structure of it open to the Manitoba summer sky. I've photographed outdoor ceremonies at venues across the province, and very few feel as genuinely embedded in the landscape as this one.

The arbor was built from birch logs — Alysia and Josh made it themselves. It had that quality that only handmade things have: slightly irregular, entirely intentional, more beautiful for having been built rather than bought. Josh was standing under it when I arrived at the ceremony space, and I stopped at the edge of the treeline and just shot from there. The dappled light through the birch canopy was landing exactly right.

Alysia walked down the aisle with sunflowers in her hands and her veil trailing behind her in the grass. When Josh saw her, his face did the thing that grooms' faces do when they've been waiting and suddenly the waiting is over. I was watching his face, not hers, when she came through the trees. That's where the photograph is.

The vows were personal and unhurried. The guests were close enough to hear every word — white benches packed with people who had driven out to this farm in Manitoba because these two people matter to them. When they kissed for the first time under the log arbor, with the birch forest behind them and the whole congregation standing, I had one of my favourite frames of the summer.

Portraits — The Birch Forest

Deer Meadow Farm has a network of paths through the birch trees, and we used all of them. The birch trees in Manitoba in summer have a particular quality — the white bark, the trembling leaves, the light that comes through in irregular patches. You walk into that forest with a couple and the photographs almost make themselves. Almost.

I put Josh on the path alone first. Light grey suit, sunflower bouquet in hand, the birch path stretching behind him. He looked at the camera and I pressed the shutter and I knew immediately that frame was going in every edit I sent. It's the kind of image that captures something specific about a person on a wedding day — composed and present, entirely himself.

Then Alysia joined him and we moved through the forest at the pace that couple portraits should move: no rush, no agenda, no strained expressions. They had been together long enough that comfortable looks like natural in a photograph. The light was doing exactly what birch forest light does when the sun is high — scattered, soft, continuous. We stayed until we had exhausted every position and then I kept going anyway, because there is almost no such thing as too many frames in a birch forest on a summer afternoon.

The Reception at Deer Meadow Farm

The quonset barn at Deer Meadow Farm is one of the most distinctive reception spaces I've photographed in Manitoba. The arching wooden ceiling, the exposed structural beams, the mezzanine balcony overlooking the dance floor — it has an architectural character that most barn venues work very hard to replicate and never quite achieve. Alysia had decorated the head table with a long sunflower garland, and the cross-back chairs and round tables filled the space with exactly the warmth that the building deserved.

Burnside BBQ was catering, and the smell of it — smoke and something slow-cooked and deeply good — was part of the atmosphere from the moment you walked in. The barn felt less like a rented venue and more like a place that had been set up by people who knew the couple well. Which, on a day like this one, it essentially had been.

The first dance was slow and close. I shot it wide to get the barn in — the string lights overhead, the mezzanine full of guests looking down, the arching ceiling framing everything. Then I moved in tight and shot the two of them in the light, and that's where the photographs are that Alysia and Josh will keep.

The speeches were honest and specific and funny in the places where honest and specific stories tend to be funny. The dancing started early and didn't stop. As the night went on and the barn got warmer, I moved to the mezzanine and shot down at the dance floor — the string lights, the wooden walls, the whole community of people that had gathered for this specific day.

We finished the portraits outside at golden hour — the wide Manitoba sky, the last light over the fields, the two of them holding hands and laughing at something I didn't hear. By then the day had already given me everything I needed. The golden hour was a gift on top.