It's been busy, so I haven't had a chance to work on heraldk.ca anymore since I launched it. Don't worry, it'll be updated! This weekend I got to be part of a real special weekend for my friend and colleague, Darse Billings. He got married this weekend, and I was proud to be one of the select people he chose to include in part of his special day. He decided to essentially elope, and the only reason I was included was I was the photographer for the event. So at the ceremony, there was just 6 people. The happy couple: Darse and Alexandra, the marriage commissioner: June, the witnesses: Dr and Dr Buro, and the photographer: yours truly. The ceremony was quick, although that was partially due to the weather which didn't entirely cooperate. Darse was pretty happy though -- he loves the rain. The ceremony went off with no problems and the happy couple shared their kiss and then we all dashed off to June's car to finish the paperwork.

By the time the paperwork was over the rain had already quieted down, so we drove down to the museum grounds hoping that the rain would subside for us to get some photos in. It turned out we were in luck, and we joined the FIVE other weddings in a competition to find good scenic spots to get photos. I think we did alright, and you'll probably be seeing quite a few of my photos get posted to Flickr (that is, if Darse and Alexandra are okay with that). There were quite a few rather good photos, in my humble opinion.

After the photo shoot, I picked up Diane and we met up with the rest of the wedding crowd at the Blue Pear. The six of us enjoyed an incredible 5 course meal. Each course was amazing. I felt kinda funny taking pictures of my food, but it was good enough that I'm gonna want those photos to remember. I just justify it by saying that Darse and Alexandra will also want to remember their food... right? I took several more photos of the couple and the rest of the guests throughout dinner. All the while, really really enjoying my 50mm f/1.4 canon lens that can take some pretty fantastic low light photos. Just about any other lens would've had issues, but this one had no problems with the ISO set to just 800 for most of the photos. Hooray!

After dinner, our next stop was a games party at my supervisor, Jonathan Schaeffer's house. By the time Diane and I got there, Darse had already broken the news that he had decided to go to Ireland ... and that he happened to have gotten married earlier in the day. He brought four magnums of champagne to celebrate - and when Diane and I came in the door we were passed glasses and quickly had them filled. As usual, the games party was lots of fun, but because we got there late I didn't get a chance to play many games. I did play a new game called Ingenious, which Darse had found. It was pretty fun. I might have to pick up a copy of that (even though I already have too many games that I don't play).

So it was a pretty fun, and eventful day. Congratulations to Darse and Alexandra again! It was an honour to be part of your special day.

Heraldk