As our life often is sometimes, the past few weeks have been packed with busy schedules, fun and excitement, and a rush of challenges and finding solutions. Through it all, we've come to realize how much we depend on each other for support and to share our joys with!

Many of you know things have been crazy busy here at Sam and Mary Photography and we are thrilled to be able to share tons of AWESOME engagement sessions so far and will be blogging more of them soon! We've been looking forward to this for weeks! Whew!!!

So, to celebrate, today we are off for a couple of days to catch our breaths, find inspiration, and recharge our batteries before wedding season rolls into full swing. They say it's better for the creative juices, so who are we to say no? : ) The plan: sunny afternoons lounging by the pool or at the beach, sipping wine and watching the sunet, relaxing dinners (without the laptops) and of course lots of NAPS!!! We will of course be bringing our camera (not plural!), one lens, no flash and only 1 Gig!!! We're packing light!

We just wanted to say a huge "THANK YOU!" to all our couples so far for making the engagement sessions so much fun. You guys make our day with your adventurous spirit, love of life, and for being truly in love. Thank you for allowing us to explore with you and for not being afraid to love. We are deep with gratitude for being a small part of your lives (hopefully this is just a beginning!) and I know we've said it before, but you guys make our work so worthwhile! We love our jobs and can't imagine doing anything else!

Looking forward to your wedding days and can't wait to celebrate with you!

Special thanks to Anna and Paul - we will be shooting their wedding at the Museum of Civilization end of August! - for the nice bottle of ..er.. "inspiration". ;) This is definitely part of our plan and we will be enjoying it surrounded by our girls' squealing voices as they run free and splash in the waters...

Love you guys!

It's amazing how fast a week can fly by, and seeing that it is officially friday, we thought we'd post some of our favourite (okay, probably not so recent) movies of late. Some light humour, lots about life, some thought-provoking, but all worth watching twice! They are well written stories, have good dialogue and acting, are fun, light-hearted or just plain different way of looking at life. We love them all! 

The last one, Wedding Crashers, another Owen Wilson movie worth mentioning is an old one, but was recommended by clients of ours. Seeing that we are the in wedding business, they thought we had to check out Wedding Crashers, which we finally watched and it was hilarious!

As photographers, we often get to witness the most amazing of human emotions and it is this part of our job (among others!) that we love so much.

Whether it be capturing that first look of the groom seeing his bride in her gown for the first time on the day of their wedding, or that touch between a couple in love, or that oh-so-happy look of a child freely playing, being behind the camera allows us to capture those moments as they happen. We also love being a part of these moments which is what continues to inspire us each time we take that next photo.

With mother's day coming this weekend, just thought we'd share one of our favorite images that captures so well that special connection between mother and child.

It has been quite busy around here and because of that, and the fact that I think he is mellowing in his old age, Sam wanted a nice quiet birthday. That usually means something relaxing, throw in a good nap somewhere in there, and of course, good food.

So, we took a trip to the sugar bush this morning, had a wonderful pancake brunch at Fulton's, and spent most of the day outdoors there and at home in our neighbourhood. Later, we all went out for dinner and had one of Sam's favorite spicy chinese dishes, Deep fried salt and pepper shrimp.

To top it all off, Sam got to pick up his own cake for himself, and thought it such a wonderful self-affirming experience to be able to buy himself a birthday cake and ask them to write, Happy Birthday, Sam. It is great to be able to appreciate and celebrate your birthday, and however strange, I told Sam, I get to pick out my own cake on my birthday this year!

Sam, at 34.

The delicious cake. Loaded with cookies & cream and all that good-for-your-soul stuff. It was huge, but all the better for sharing... :)

Of course, hanging out with Sam, meant rockin' out, so we spent the rest of the evening, taking our "band" on tour with Rockband.

It was a lazy Sunday and although there was too much fun to afford a nap, it was a great way to just enjoy it with someone who rocks my world. Happy Birthday, Sam!

Love, Mary.

Sam and I always laugh at how different we are. One major difference is I love to read books, mostly ones with words. Currently, I am reading books on a variety of topics, everything from business, to life, to interesting topics I want to learn about. With so much information available on the internet, we both do a lot of reading and learning that way, but I still love the feel of grabbing a good book and going off to find a preferably sunny spot to enjoy it.

Sam's criteria for a good book, however, is one with less words and more pictures. Sam's all-time favorite books to read are..., yes, comic books. And magazines, does that count as a book? (We both love magazines!) Back to comics, though, his current favorite is the Ultimate Spiderman series and other super-hero stories.

Recently, though, we've both come to appreciate our differences. Sam managed to read through a whole short book on design, The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda, that was recommended by a good friend of ours. And I finally read through a whole Spiderman comic, which Sam got for me as a gift, which is actually quite good!

Here's a fun project Sam worked on some time last year that I managed to dig up while "spring cleaning" my files. It is a line art drawing that Sam drew from an actual photo of me. I love the way it looks like a cartoon, and reminds me of Sam's love for comics!

Back to spring cleaning!