Farrah is one of those super genius scientist types. I remember asking her at the engagement shoot what she did, and after two fairly long sentences of which I understood neither nouns nor verbs, there was a brief silence (I think I saw some tumbleweed roll by), followed by me saying in a retarded voice “I’m a photographer! I take pictures!” Seriously. Having explained that, the ama-zinc (snorty laugh) decor by SBD at the wedding will make a lot more sense.

The following week, we covered their valima in Ottawa getting some beautiful shots at the newly built and uber chic Ottawa Convention Centre. Check it out!

Wedding Planner & Designer: Sara Baig Designs
Make-up (Wedding): Maggie Wu
Make-up (Valima): Seema Haider

We are most excited about sharing some creative shots from their wedding shoot. Check them out!

You can find the magazine at your local Chapters/Indigo location. To see a complete list of locations where you can find the magazine visit the Kismet Magazine’s website.

Later that day, I am sitting in a school bus in the blistering heat of Karachi with a pounding headache. Next to me is sitting this girl going on and on about this guy she has a crush on. I listen using the least bit of my brain matter required to stay engaged in a conversation without looking aloof. All of a sudden she starts screaming, pointing at some guy walking outside. Her high-pitched note zapping the droopy part of my brain causing me to look outside and see Arsalan walking by. Ugh! I close my eyes and cover my face hoping it would drown out her annoying voice.

The year is 1998. It’s lunch time and Arsalan is bobbing about the whole school showing off his new camera. In a few minutes, he comes up to me and asks if I could take his picture. I grab the camera, press my nose next to its flat back, and peep through the viewfinder to find Arsalan standing with legs crossed giving the camera his best smoulder. I contain my laugh, click and hand him the camera.

A few days later, as I’m walking down the corridor with my friends, I hear Arsalan call me from the back. I turn around and he is waving a piece of paper in his hand. Ok, what’s this about now, I think. “Look, look, look at this picture you took!”. I take the piece of paper from his hand and it’s the picture I took of him. Smoulder and all. Yep. I look up at him inquisitively. “Where are my feet? There is all this space above my head and you cut off my feet? Who takes a picture of a person and cuts off their feet?”. “Your face is there at least, isn’t it?” I rebuttaled. But, of course, I wasn’t off the hook and had to hear about it for a long, long time.

The year is 2011. I’m in Canada, I’m married and I have a one month old baby. My phone rings and it is, lo and behold, Arsalan! We catch up on each others lives and he tells me he is getting married and wants me to photograph his wedding. He tells me his fiance Sarah, who we later find out has been following our blog religiously, will get in touch and sort out the details.

It’s a day before Arsalan’s wedding and I am on the phone with him arguing. He doesn’t want to go out for a photo shoot, Sarah does, so do we, but he just won’t be convinced. And for a minute I feel like I am back in Karachi sitting in my class dodging my head. Finally we hang up on an off note and I have no idea whether he would show up the next day for the photo shoot or not. But thankfully, as Asad would tell me later, he not only showed up, but was at his best behaviour throughout the night.

So Arsalan! Here is a trip down the memory lane. Many congratulations to you and Sarah, and we hope you’d have a beautiful life together. I also made sure your legs weren’t cut off this time :p Enjoy the pictures!

In 2012 and 2013, we will only be selecting a handful of wedding assignments for video. So if that is something you’re interested in and would like to be considered for, drop us a line with your wedding details, and we will be in touch.

Starting now, we are also offering video engagement shoots for that includes initial consultation, script and story development, shooting, editing, and final delivery. Couples who we’ve been talking to intend to showcase the engagement shoot video with their wedding or save-the-date e-invites, their own wedding website, or as introduction highlights video before the grand entrance at the wedding.

Enjoy!

(Unless you’re on a mobile device, you can switch the resolution up to HD by clicking the number next to the + sign on the bottom right of the video clip once playing)

Special thanks to Awais Jaffery from Desi Vibe.

Oh and Eid Mubarak everyone!

and you may remember their Engagement Shoot pictures from earlier on our blog.

I flew in to Edmonton the day before the wedding, and drove about an hour out of the city to a small town called Wetaskiwin. I met up with one of Angelina’s friends, Liz, and we drove around checking out possible shoot locations for the next day. We first visited the ceremony site, where they had erected tents surrounded by acres of fields. From there we headed to scout other locations, and it dawned on me pretty quickly that this was going to be a bit of a challenge. Wetaskiwin is a small town, and there really aren’t that many cool architectures or backgrounds that usually save the day in the city. They have a humble church, a city hall and a small lake. We literally drove from one end of the town to the other and back in an hour, and that’s with me stopping and getting out of the car to check out the locations. I decided that it won’t make sense to make a small town look like a big city. If fields and farms are what the town has to offer, then that’s what we should use. Near the lake, I found this vista/hill that seemed to be exactly what I wanted. And so it was decided, and I headed to the hotel to get some sleep before an early morning start.

The next morning, we started at Angelina’s parents’ place in Wetaskiwin taking her getting ready pictures. This was followed by the traditional Bengali Hindu ceremony at the site. We then headed to the vista for the couple’s photo shoot along with their bridal party. At some point during the shoot, for some reason we found Tejas running around the vista, with his dhoti unfurled in his hand, his kurta giving a detailed weather report including wind speed and direction. Funny couple they are. Of course, I got pictures.

After the shoot, we drove out to Edmonton for the reception at the prestigious Shaw Conference Centre. And if the day hadn’t already been awesomely eventful, there were pyrotechnics, our signature picture from their engagement shoot displayed on two 20 feet high projection screens, men racing to dress up in saris and some pretty interesting dance moves.

Anyways, after all the tearing and shredding, at the bottom of the stack I found a small yellow envelope with our names on it. I turned it over and it said “If undelivered return to: Uroos Ali …” followed by an address. I opened the envelope, and inside I found the cutest little card congratulating us on the birth of our little one! Now, we’ve meet Uroos twice, one for the initial client meeting, and second when she came by to sign everything for her wedding this December. But the fact that she actually kept up with what was going on in our lives, and took the time to go out, find a card and mail it, means a LOT to us! I immediately went upstairs, woke Mehreen up and started waving the card in her face.

So Uroos and Khalid, we couldn’t just send you a lame email saying thank you, which you’ll still get. Your card gets its own entire blog post!

Oh, btw, Afroz turned a month old today!

]]> http://aliphaurmeem.com/blog/cute/feed/ 0 http://aliphaurmeem.com/blog/besttoronto-wedding-photographers/ http://aliphaurmeem.com/blog/besttoronto-wedding-photographers/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:59:23 +0000 AliphAurMeem http://aliphaurmeem.com/blog/?p=714 And so here we are with what should be the last engagement shoot for the season. After this we’ll be bombarding the blog with wedding pictures of all the amazing couples we’ve had the pleasure of working and meeting.

For Puja and Keith’s engagement shoot, we went to Sunnyside and a few other locations in downtown Toronto. Their wedding is coming up in a few weeks, with the traditional Indian ceremony in the morning, followed by what we are expecting to be an uber cool reception at a bar club in downtown Toronto!

Oh and if you haven’t already found out from our Facebook page, we are now proud parents of the cutest little baby girl. We named her Afroz Jahaan and she’s here to brighten our world (that’s what the name means!).

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