We’ve always referred to Nordica as our baby, and it is. Nordica’s roots are deep within both our lives and we’ve nurtured it, fed it, and watched it grow ever since we gave it a name and started shaping it’s identity in November of 2009. Like any proud parents, we shone the limelight a bit too bright on a baby that we knew nothing about, and we may have blinded ourselves a bit along the way.

But, with naive in full force, we pushed forward believing our baby would grow to be awesome.

Nordica took a few steps in 2010 – steps that we were very proud of and still are – but those steps were not unlike a crazy teenager’s.

More confident then experienced, more talking then listening, more dreaming then action. In 2010, Nordica was the loud-mouthed guy who screamed greatness having yet achieved a thing, and yelling to the world all the things he wanted to achieve one day.

Then, in 2011, it started to happen.

Some – not all – of the things the loud-mouthed teenager was screaming began to happen. It was as though Nordica had just cruised the university, had a dream job in mind, and actually got hired.

We dreamt about photographing a wedding in Iceland. Nordica ended up beside glaciers on one trip, and isolated countryside the next.

We dreamt about photographing multicultural weddings. We found ourselves in Sikh temples, Mexican jungles, Swedish archipelagos, historical farmlands, Indian ceremonies and faraway ranches.

Throughout 2011, we lived the dreams that we envisioned to be possible when we first started. We had big ideas, and somehow they came true.

And as 2011 drew to a close, we realize that we weren’t yelling a bunch of bullshit without substance anymore, and we weren’t living in some sort of fantasy that would be whisked away.

We realized that our little man, Nordica, had done a great deal of maturing, and we are proud of who he’s becoming. There are many lessons to be learned still, but experience and achieving goals has lit a fire in our little man, and we look forward to seeing where the journey takes him in 2012.

A few of months ago I flew down to Xcaret, just outside Cancun in the Mayan Riviera, Mexico, to shoot a wedding with one of the most talented wedding photographers in the world. Senor Fer Juaristi.

A couple of days later I returned to Vancouver, having shot a wedding with not only one of the most talented wedding photographers in the world, but also one of the most genuinely nice people I’ve ever met.

These are some of my favourite shots from Alejandra and Pepe’s day in the Mexican jungle.

/Jakob

Wedding in Cancun, Mexico? Yep, why not. That’s where Krystin and Michael are headed in the not-too-distant future. Lucky buggers.

We did their engagement session in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Next to San Francisco, Vancouver’s Chinatown is the biggest in North America. There’s your useless fact of the day.

Aside from a bird shitting on Michael a minute after we shook hands for the first time, this session turned out swimmingly.

Cool people, great location, sunny day. This is why we really like our jobs.

“Don’t celebrate the attainment of the summit, celebrate the style of the climb”

You know the kind of days when the ground smells of a freshly beaten rain? That’s how it smelled on Meagan and Chad’s wedding due to the flash showers that pounded the Mayan Riviera resort, near Cancun in Mexico.

The situation was as such: No rain for the ceremony (thankfully), but monsoon right after our five minute portrait session with the bride and the groom (not so thankfully).

So our situation at that point was very straightforward. The weather wasn’t cooperative: figure it out. The lighting wasn’t mint: figure it out. We couldn’t see a thing through our cameras because they were covered in water: figure it out.

The style of this climb was seeing the actions of the group when that rain storm hit. You can’t predict or plan those types of moments, and those were the moments we’ll remember from this wedding.

There is a slideshow to music that contains more images at the bottom of the post.

We were recently flown down to Cancun for a wedding. Needless to say, it was an incredible experience and we felt very fortunate to be a part of it. Future weddings in Mexico are certainly high on our agenda.

This particular wedding was between Chad and Meagan, and while we were there, we spent a few minutes doing a pre-wedding photo session together. We just wanted to get comfortable with one another so on the day of their wedding, we would nail their pictures.

Voila. Engagement photography session Mexican style.

Here’s one picture from the pre-wedding shoot we did with the couple.

We’ll post the full engagement shoot later. Cerveza!