New Website and Blog

I'm so excited to announce that I now have a new website and blog! I will certainly miss posting here, but if you want to continue to follow me you will need to head over to my new site!

www.brittanyleephotography.ca

As you probably noticed, along with the new site is a new name! I am now working as Brittany Lee Photography and loving it!

So... come on over and meet me at the new digs!

xo B

Jessie and Matthew ~ Maternity Session

I absolutely LOVE when people give photo sessions as gifts! I think sometimes people forget how amazing it is to have photos of big moments in your life. I think giving the gift of memories captured in photographs in one of the best gifts to give.

 

I was completely thrilled when a friend contacted me to do a surprise maternity session for her cousin. She was pretty surprised when she showed up at her grandmothers at lunch and found out she was actually doing a photo shoot. Luckily Jessie is naturally stunning, so even though it was a surprise she looked fabulous for snowy photo session. 

 

 

I absolutely had to share a few photos of the cake for her baby shower later that day. As always, Crystal from CMC Custom Cakes created a delicious masterpiece. 

 

xoxo B

Back from Connecticut and excited for what is to come!

I am back from my amazing trip to New Haven Connecticut and I am still on cloud 9. As I am sure you would agree, completely random adventures run the risk of being a lunchbox letdown (you know what I am saying... you get to school and open up the lunch your mom packed and realize instead of a snack pack pudding you got a banana. Womp Womp). Well, this trip was like opening up your lunch box and finding an entire box of preo cookies!

I met so many amazing people and was honestly sad to say goodbye to many of them! Unfortunately I still cant tell you exactly what we were doing, but I can say the project was jam packed with so many fabulous vendors and hard working people. It was such a pleasure to have met them all and get to see them work their magic. I got dolled up every morning by a team of talented women with Simply Gorgeous By Erin. I literally rolled in right out of bed and they used their magic to turn me into this each morning:

Getting to meet Justin and Mary and see them in action was so great. They really were just as wonderful as I had hoped... if not even more. They were such genuine and kind people and I was very grateful for the opportunity to meet them. 

I have to say that I have returned to Ottawa with a new spark of passion for wedding photography. I have so many ideas swirling around in my head and I cannot wait to get some of them into action. I'm thrilled to say that there are some great changes coming soon around here and I'm hoping it wont be too long before I can let you all know what they are (look at me being so secretive with everything!). This trip was such a great learning experience for me and it has really gotten me fired up about where I am heading and what my goals are. 

I am sorry that I can't tell you more about what we were working on - but I can promise that as soon as it is announced it will be here for you see (and I hope... Enjoy!). 

To all my new Connecticut friends, I just want to say Thank you and I hope we have the chance to work with each other again. Feel free to come visit me in Canada anytime!

xo B

Off on an adventure to New Haven Connecticut

I have some super exciting... and very random news! The Mr and I are leaving tomorrow to go to New Haven Connecticut! You are probably wondering what the heck we are doing there in the middle of January, and no neither of us are registering at Yale. We are going to meet two of my Idols!

I am gitty just typing it.... we are going to meet Mary and Justin Marantz!

If you have never seen their work, you are missing out. Check out their fabulous blog here.

Justin and Mary are international wedding photographers based in New Haven. They are a husband and wife team who not only photograph beautiful weddings, but they are also fabulous teachers in the photography community. They are the bomb and I absolutely love reading their blog and swooning over their photos.

Now that you are caught up on who we are going to see, you are likely wondering what we are doing when we get there. Well... that is where things get ever cooler and randomer (is randomer a word?). The Mr and I are going to be their Bride and Groom for a huge project they are doing with Profoto USA. We will be filming for 3 days and I will get to watch Justin and Mary in action! Unfortunately I cant tell you any more right now... but I promise to share more details once we get back.

I am so excited that I have decided to abandon regular sentence structure and I will now continue my thoughts in bullet points:

- I clearly have the best husband ever! Not only is he taking 3 days of vacation and driving for 7 hours with me, he is totally on board for playing dress up and letting me drag him around New Haven in a tux! Clearly this is not his idea of a vacation, but he knows how exciting it would be for me and he is happy to do whatever it takes to make my dreams come true!

- I have no idea what the weather is like in New Haven. Do you think I need my parka?

- I secretly hope that Mary and I become instant friends. Like the kind of friends that ask if you need some home made soup when you are sick with a cold.

- We had to send our measurements to the wonderful event planner taking care of the details. I will admit it was very odd sending an email with my bra size to a complete stranger.

I hope all of you find a random and fun opportunity this week too! See you all when I get back!

 

Guest Blogging over at the Sweetest Digs

Im super pumped to announce that today I am guest blogging over at The Sweetest Digs!

My love for DIY is no secret and I am excited to share a little project on a fellow Ottawa blog!

Make sure you head over to the Sweet Digs Blog to check out the full post!

xo B

Hana & Chris ~ Crowne Plaza Wedding

Hana and Chris had an amazing winter wedding and I figured it was time I show you a few of my favorites from their big day. You can check out their engagement session here.

 

Hana and Chris really are a lovely couple. They are so easy going and fun to be around. These two sure know how to throw one heck of a party and it was such a pleasure to be a part of their wedding.

This may be my favorite picture ever. I bet you wish your wedding speech was as funny as Hana's.

I wish you both so much happiness!

xo B

Hammering away at an art project ... literally

I love DIY projects. Whether it requires a glue gun, circular saw, or sewing machine, I am usually game to give it a try. I don't like to spend money on something that I can make myself especially if then I can make it exactly how I want it. This is my first time sharing a DIY project with you guys, so feel free to let me know what you think in the comments! But first.... as always... as little background info!

I am the middle child in a family with three girls. So I had the joy (and occasional misery) of growing up with two sisters. My mom used to say I was the icing in the middle of the Oreo cookie - but I think she just said this as a way to combat my Middle Child Syndrome - all you middle kids out there totally know what I am talking about.

Kat is my older sister and she lives a glamorous life in Toronto as an amazing hair stylist. Zoë is my little sister and she lives near me in Ottawa. You may remember Zoë from this couple session. I have said it before, but I will say it again... she is a true beauty!

Photo by Laura Kelly Photography

Anyways, Zoë recently moved to a new apartment and I wanted to make her something for her new place. I had done some nail & yarn art on the seating chart for our wedding and I was looking for a chance to try some more.

Photo by Laura Kelly Photography

The seating chart was not small (it was 4 feet x 2 feet - and I almost dropped it on my foot twice). She wanted something to hang over her bed, so I used the same building design and shrunk it down a little bit.

Instead of using a wood-colour stain like I did on the seating chart I decided instead to try out a new grey stain I found. Once it was built I took it to the garage and gave it a good coat of the Winwax stain in Classic Grey.

For the design I originally wanted to do the letters LOVE really big, but as I was making my stencil I thought that was a little too boring. So I decided to put the word LOVE inside a heart (not exactly a wild choice... but a little less boring I think). The plan was the wrap the yarn between the heart and the letters and leave the inside of the letters just the wood. I'm not sure if that explanation makes any sense.... when I tried to explain it the Mr he looked at me like I had just eaten a container of play-doh. Luckily for me, a picture is worth a thousand words.

I printed off the word love in the font and size that I wanted. I didn't want it centred in the heart, so it is off a bit to the right side of the board. Finding the right spacing for the nails was hard and because the letters were not huge there were some places where I had to space them a little differently. I really do love symmetry... but sometimes you just have to go with what works.


Side Note: this may not have been a good project to work on with a glass of wine. No one was injured, but wine was spilt... and that may actually have be worse.

I had to change the shape of the letters a little as I went along. I used smaller nails on the seating chart, so I had to adjust my spacing to make room for the large nail heads.

 

 

 

Once I finished the letters I pulled off the paper stencil and laid out my heart stencil. I had cut out the middle of the heart so that I could lay it over the LOVE nails.

Side note: I realize it looks like I drew the heart stencil drunk, but I promise it really was symmetrical - it was just the inside part that I cut sloppy. Notice that I am not saying I wasn't drunk... rather that it was symmetrical and my sobriety wouldn't have made a difference. *wink

I nailed around the outside of the heart stencil and then once i gained feeling back in my arm I took off the paper. Now it is ready for the yarn.

I must admit when I did the yarn part of the seating chart there was a lot of swearing. My little sister was actually at my house when I was working on it and witnessed a lot of profanity... she thought it was hilarious and I could hear her laughing upstairs while I hollered bad words in the basement.

Luckily this time around went much smoother. As smooth as wrapping yarn around a billion nails could go I guess.

Side note: I took the above and below pics in different rooms and with different lighting... hence the wood looks really different. In real life it is actually somewhere in the middle of the two colours. I just didn't want you to think that this project is some kind of a photoshop scam... although that would be pretty impressive.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this like escape from the usual. Happy DIYing friends. 

xo B