award winners

Holy Moly! 2018 Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards - (Winners!!)

2018 Vancouver Island Wedding Awards winners of Best Overall Wedding Photographers, Best Candid Photo, and Best Group Photo! Wew wew!

We clean up alright.

We clean up alright.

We’ve been living on Vancouver Island for about 2 and a half years now, and it’s been such an amazing experience. Matt was raised in a small town in northern BC, and Sayde grew up in the country in Southern Ontario, so needless to say: small town island life suits us very well!

Aside from the laid back, outdoor lifestyle of Island life, we’ve fallen in love with the community here. The wedding industry community most of all! Even though there are sooo many talented wedding vendors in Victoria area, and all over Vancouver Island, there is a huge sense of support, encouragement, and inclusiveness.

Every year talented wedding industry professionals gather to celebrate the year, enjoy a night out, and indulge in delicious food and drinks at the Vancouver Island Wedding Awards! As the day of the awards drew closer we got more and more excited to enjoy our first date night in 10 months. This year was our first year attending the awards show, and we could not have been more excited to see and mingle with all the vendors we’ve gotten to know.

As parenthood, self employment, and a career in the wedding industry have taught us: things don’t always go according to plan and you need to adapt and roll with it! Half way through the evening parenthood duty popped up I had to leave quickly to pick up our sick babe at the sitter, leaving Matt solo for the awards half of the evening.

I spent the rest of the night driving around to soundly keep our daughter asleep, until it came time to pick up Matt. A heavy armed Matt walked out to the car carrying three white boxes, three bottles of wine, and three envelopes. At first I thought maybe we won some door prizes, until Matt opened each box which housed a glass diamond: Best Candid Photo, Best Group Photo, and Best Overall Wedding Photographer. I ALMOST FELL OVER! Matt also told me that we also placed as finalists for Best Wedding Couple Photo and Best Engagement Photo.

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I was instantly emotional for so many reasons..

This year was our wildest year so far; personally and in business! We welcomed our first baby in January, have had more weddings, and more travel than any year to date! This year of baby-obsession, challenges, lessons, excitement, and perseverance-through-sleep-deprivation has been our most fulfilling year, but in the haze of business its easy to second guess yourself and wonder if you’re doing the best job that you could be. Happy clients who love and cherish their photos is what we live and work so hard for as business owners, and these awards feel great to have acknowledgement that our photographs, perspectives, and creativity is translating with clients, other wedding professionals, and other creatives.

We’re so thankful to have the best, trusting clients! We can’t wait to finally have the time in our slower season to start posting more of the blogs from their weddings this year. Until then, here are our winning images!

2018 Winners of the “Best Candid Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Winners of the “Best Candid Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Winners of the “Best Group Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Winners of the “Best Group Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Finalist for “Best Couple Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Finalist for “Best Couple Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Finalist for “Best Engagement Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Finalist for “Best Engagement Photo” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

For the “best overall wedding photographers” category, there isn’t any single image alone that wins this title…it’s more an assessment of the total of the work you produce, so for this photo we have simply chosen a few images as figureheads to represent the award. They are also some of our favourites of the year!

2018 Winners of the “Best Overall Wedding Photographers” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Winners of the “Best Overall Wedding Photographers” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Winners of the “Best Overall Wedding Photographers” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Winners of the “Best Overall Wedding Photographers” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Winners of the “Best Overall Wedding Photographers” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

2018 Winners of the “Best Overall Wedding Photographers” award from the Vancouver Island Wedding Industry Awards

Matt had to accept the awards on his own since I was gone with our sicky babe, but I think he brought enough personality to the winners’ photobooth for the two of us!

We hope you love the images, and please get in touch if you’d like to discuss your wedding day photography, or anything else!