Mrs. Gingerbread, Vancouver
Age and Occupation: 32, Psychologist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 33, Software Engineer
Engagement Date: Sometime in the fall of 2004
Wedding Date: July, 2008
Blogging Since: March 24, 2008
Venue: Rainforest wedding, beachfront restaurant reception
About Me: I recently moved to Canada from Southern California. Trying to plan a wedding in a new city, not to mention a new country, is tough, but the fact that we can get legally married here more than makes up for it! The wedding will be an opportunity for most of our family and friends to see our new city for the first time so it will be both a wedding and a reunion. Besides my future wife, I am also madly in love with a good bargain, Swedish pastries, Tivo, and my two dogs and calico cat (in no particular order).
The Photo That Inspired International Travel
June 4th, 2008 @ 3:15 pm by Mrs. Gingerbread
Early on, I blogged about our difficulties in finding a photographer. After scouring the internet, we only had a couple of potential photographers who advertised that they worked with same-sex couples (as evidenced by the photographs on their websites). Unfortunately, they were out of our price range. One photographer that we met with told us that the photographer she used when she married her wife really did a horrible job. The photographer didn’t take any pictures of them kissing and she noticed that he averted the camera each time. I was feeling really discouraged about our options.
Then it occured to me to approach a friend of ours, Aki Mimoto. We met him in 2005 when we visited Vancouver for the first time and he took this photo of us.
At that time, we said to each other that we’d love to be able to use him as our wedding photographer when the time came. I was nervous to ask, but when we did he happily agreed and didn’t even want compensation. As if that didn’t rock enough already, Aki mentioned that he had a friend, Carlton Chan, who would be interested in also shooting our wedding to build his portfolio. How lucky are we?
Our save the date postcard is actually a photo that Aki took of our ceremony site earlier this year.
Miss GB 2.0 used Vistaprint and with the help of a coupon, got us 100 postcards for $14! Our guests loved the postcards. One of my mom’s friends booked her flight upon receiving the postcard. This will be her first trip outside of the U.S.! Ahh, the power of a great photograph.
10 Responses to “The Photo That Inspired International Travel”
wow, what a great deal! you guys are sooo loved!
the bridge pic is amazing…i’d book after getting that in the mail too, lol!
SCORE!
You must be seriously awesome to have such awesome friends 
Aki seems extremely talented. You are so fortunate! Are you doing engagement photos, or do we need to wait until the wedding to see more of his work?
FWIW a lot of photographers (myself included) would love to do same-sex weddings even though I have never done one. Just because we don’t have pics doesn’t mean we won’t. Always ask 
Sounds like things worked out beautifully for you both as that’s a phenomial photographer! I adore that bridge pic!
@Corey: You are right, I am sure there are lots of great photographers out there that would be wonderful to work with even though they haven’t shot any same-sex wedding before. But we got spooked from our early encounters with a few photographers, coupled with horror stories from other same-sex couples. I wonder what photographers who are interested in same-sex wedding business could do to indicate that they are open to the opportunity. Being able to easily locate such photographers would have made my life much more pleasant.
@Erin: Aki is awesome! Not only is he an amazing photographer, but he is a really sweet guy and he has the nicest wife ever. I love them and feel really blessed to have them as a part of our celebration. We don’t have any plans for engagement photos at this time.
@GetMarried4Less: Our guests could not stop talking about the save the date postcard! It was perfect
Oh no, I’ve just started to venture into photographer territory and wasnt thinking twice about straight and/or male photographers. It never occurred to me that their work would be different, I just thought it would be a fun plus to have a family photographer. Photographers are artists right? Artists are open-minded right? Naive attack! If I do interview straight photographers, I’ll be sure to turn up the PDA and keep one eye open.
Would listing commitment ceremonies in the wording with Weddings help??? I don’t want to be in-your-face about it but I definately want people to know that I’m more than willing to shoot ALL kinds of love
@Corey: I think including the phrase “commitment ceremonies” would definitely help same-sex couples see you as friendly and inviting their business. I know I was looking for any signs when I search tons of different sites
Corey I just checked out your site and that shot of the couple with the shoe would definitely give me high hopes about your interest in a wide variety of couples!
[…] late due to crappy traffic issues, but we made the best of it soaking up the beauty of our venue. Aki took a bunch of shots at the rehearsal (lucky us!) so I thought I’d share some of them with […]
[…] have to stop to say that I love having these photos that Aki took because it lets me see what I missed since I couldn’t be in two places at once. It’s so […]
