Written by Davina Palik. Photographed by Davina Palik & Daniel Kudish.

This engagement session was definitely one for the books. It was tough to schedule in the first place, what with the four of us being really busy right now (we’re off to Bali for a wedding and they’re moving to Spain in a few weeks right after their wedding). When we finally settled on a date, Julia had a bad cold and there was rain in the forecast, but without any other options, we powered through.

Well, we were in for quite a treat. The “rain” turned out to be a pretty crazy storm, complete with amazing skies. Julia and Alex were troopers, getting soaked right at the beginning and letting us take them to the roof of their building while there was lighting striking in the not-so-far-away distance.

I think we proved that neither rain, or hail, or crazy wind would keep us from doing this shoot!

Written by Daniel Kudish. Photographed by Davina Palik & Daniel Kudish.

We always look forward to engagement shoots because they give us the opportunity to photograph in new places. Besides hanging out with our pretty cool clients…
So Shital suggested to do their session at one of the McGill libraries (where she’s working on her Ph.D.). We went into it expecting something big, with long shelves and rows of books, but instead were presented with a small, warm space. There are days where we feel like we have amazing light follow us around, and this was definitely one of them.

Shital & Chet are throwing a big hindu wedding in a month, and even though we expect to be pretty tired (we’ll be coming back from a wedding-trip to Bali), we’re really looking forward to it!

Written & Photographed by Daniel Kudish.

While Davina was away (once more) on a trip to Europe, we finally got some nice weather and I had a chance to schedule Emily & Bobby’s engagement shoot. We had been in touch for several months now, as they originally wanted to do the shoot in the snow – in a way, I’m kind of happy it didn’t happen because shooting in the cold isn’t very fun! Regardless, these two were really great in front of the camera, as I dragged them around downtown for 3hrs, and had them make out on St-Catherine street, in front of lingerie stores, and inside adult movie theaters. I can’t wait to photograph these two in a couple of weeks when they tie the knot!

A big thank you to Richard Pham for coming out to help me on this shoot!

Written by Daniel Kudish. Photographed by Davina Palik & Daniel Kudish.

It’s alway such an honor when other wedding photographers want to get in front of our cameras. Larissa and Trevor, of Ambient Studios in Toronto, contacted us a couple of months ago, but weren’t engaged at the time. During a rock climbing trip in Kentucky a couple of weeks ago, Trevor popped the question, and we were even more excited to be photographing them when we heard the great news! With all four of us being engaged wedding photographers, we had so much to talk about! Sadly we didn’t have a chance to hang out much after the photo session, but we definitely plan to include them in our future travels to Toronto!

Written by Davina Palik. Photography by Davina Palik & Daniel Kudish.

I’ve been rewriting the opening line to this post a few times now because every time I write something, I’m complaining. I’m going to try giving you the facts instead: We were only back for a week before we had to go to Toronto. We had 2 photo sessions, 1 wedding, and were teaching 2 private workshops so we were there for 1 week. We just got back and I leave for Europe next week. I know, boo hoo, right? But it makes me wonder, will I ever be home longer than one week? Ever?

Now that my whining is out of the way, let me introduce you to Jennifer and Jason. They’re getting married in Montreal this summer, but call Toronto home so that’s where we did their photo session. Actually, it was so chilly that we literally did most of their photos right at their house. We joked that they’ll never see their home the same way again. You know, now that we had them making out in their bathtub, in the staircase to the basement, on their kitchen table…

Written by Davina Palik. Photography by Davina Palik & Daniel Kudish.

Tavia and Ruben first contacted us a few months ago, while we were planning this roadtrip. They are both into photography and wedding blogs and have been following us for a while now, so when they saw that we were coming by San Diego, they graciously offered to host us. This sounded a bit strange to some people, but for us, meeting new people was a big part of what this roadtrip is all about, so we took them up on their offer. We really lucked out with these two – they were so hospitable and kind, and soooo much fun! We really hit it off with them and spending 4 days at a stranger’s home wasn’t weird at all!

There are so many obviously beautiful places in San Diego: Balboa park, the many beaches, and Spanish-style architecture, but we opted for something a little more challenging and a lot more meaningful to them by just wandering around their neighborhood.

Here are some of our favorites from the shoot:

Written by Davina Palik. Photographed by Davina Palik & Daniel Kudish.

While in San Diego, we took the opportunity to meet Emilia and Bill, whose wedding we’ll be photographing next July near Boston. We’ve been in touch with them for about a year now, but had never actually met them in person so we were really happy to get the chance to do so! We met up with them for dinner, drinks, and to listen to their extensive record collection… but of course, we couldn’t resist taking a few photos here and there! We had such a great evening with them, including excellent wine and some of the best oysters we’ve ever tasted!
These are a little different than what you might be used to seeing from us and that’s what made it so much fun for us! Enjoy!

I just love the way they decorated their place. Emilia writes a blog, so it’s no surprise that she’s got great taste!

As you might know by now, we’re off on our roadtrip at the moment, but it hasn’t been all fun and games! We’ve been doing a little work here and there too. Well actually, the photoshoot we did with Kristiaan and Lionel was a whole lot of fun so I guess we’re not entitled to complain now, are we?

Photographing in Washington, DC was a whole new experience for us and the beautiful train station was the perfect setting for their vintage-themed engagement session. They were amazing subjects to photograph and i think that the fact that they are wedding photographers too might have something to do with it!

Kristiaan and Lionel are getting married in Mexico next November and we can’t freaking wait! In the meantime, here are a few shots we managed to edit on our laptop while on the road:

Connie and Steven just got engaged a few weeks ago and are having a destination wedding next fall so they’re new to all this planning stuff. Little do they know they’ve got quite a long road ahead of them… (can you tell it’s starting to get to me?!).

Here are a few of our favorites from the shoot:

Throughout the process of trying to schedule this engagement shoot, I discovered that it’s really hard to get two business owners (Daniel and I), an ophthalmologist (Karin) and a heart surgeon (Pierre-Luc) together at the same time! Our schedules never seemed to align and before we knew it, we had been going back in forth for 2 whole months. At last, this afternoon, we met up at Karin and Pierre-Luc’s apartment for the shoot. It was really neat to snoop around their home in search of the best spots and they were so patient and understanding – even when we asked them to huddle in the corner of their bathroom next to the toilet!

And I just can’t say enough about Zoe, the adorable Coco look-alike (Coco is our dog and she is practically identical to this one). She was so sweet and so cute that I swear I couldn’t look directly at her. She of course had to join in on the action for a few shots and she pretty much stole the show!

I’m so lucky to be shooting Karin and Pierre-Luc’s wedding next May here in Montreal; they are such great people (they gave us cupcakes!). In the meantime, we’ll have to arrange some play-dates for Zoe and Coco…