A Closer Look at Calgary Wedding Photography Packages

Maxine LaGArde PHOTOGRAPHY offers multiple photography options for all her wedding clients, along side complimentary engagement sessions for all clients.

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY

Your wedding day is a once-in-a-lifetime event, and I’m dedicated to capturing every heartfelt moment. My wedding photography packages start at $3000 and include comprehensive coverage, from the morning preparations to the evening celebrations. As a Calgary photographer, I understand the unique beauty of Alberta’s landscapes and venues, ensuring your photos reflect the magic of your day. Each package is crafted to provide a seamless experience, with options for engagement sessions, albums, and more.

SMALL CEREMONIES AND ELOPEMENTS

For intimate gatherings or adventurous elopements, my small ceremony and elopement packages start at $2750. These sessions are perfect for couples seeking a more private celebration without compromising on stunning photography. Whether you’re exchanging vows in the Rockies or a cozy Calgary venue, I’m here to document your love story as a qualified photographer in Calgary.

Next DAy/ WEEK WEdding Photos

Too busy for all the wedding photos you want on your wedding day and want to enjoy the day candidly with your friends and family? I also offer next day or next week wedding photos. This styling option grants you the privilege of enjoying your wedding day without the stress of stepping away from your guests for photos. Recrete the styled, couple portraits the week later and enjoy your big day with your guests stress free.

For more information please head to my Wedding FAQ’s page.

Best Engagement Photo Locations Around Calgary City

Congratulation on your engagement! What’s next? Your professional photographer would argue that your engagement photo session is just as important as your wedding day photos. That’s right, professional photographers value an engagement session as it’s the best way to practice taking photos for your wedding day and it helps create a trust relationship with your photographer. Selecting a unique location for your engagement session can be so fun and a it‘s a great way to create some beautiful art photos that differ from your weeding day photos. Here are some great locations in and around Calgary to inspire your engagement photoshoot location.

1-Badlands; The Badlands are around 1.5 hours from Calgary but it’s my favourite location by far. This location offers exceptional sunsets, dramatic and earthy vibes and beautiful historic hoodoos. This location offers a large variety of backdrops and is absolutely worth the trip.

2- Calgary parks- Calgary has so many parks like Fish Creek, Nose Hill and Lindsay Park, to name a few. Most parks are so large, there offer endless backdrops to inspire your engagement session such as fields, forests and ponds. Virtually no travel time and a true representation of Calgary’s natural beauty.

3-Urban landscapes- Calgary has so much city scape content, it’s hard to choose the exact location. There are rooftop patios, rooftop parkades, architectural hotels like the Fairmont, and creative art installations and murals to choose from that offer a different approach to engagement photography.

4- The Mountains- We are lucky to live in Calgary, where we have Canmore, Lake Louise, Banff nearly 1 hour’s distance. The mountains really represent Calgary’s backyard beauty.

5-Studio sessions- looking for a more intimate session and want too keep warm from the elements in the winter months? An indoor session might be more your style. Studio sessions offer various backdrops, endless furniture styles, and a clean, minimalist and modern vibe.

6- In home sessions; These are great for homes with lots of natural light, or clients wanting to feature a moody dramatic vibe with flash! Alternatively, backyard photoshoots are also wonderful, and can be really fun if you have a large yard, a small garden, or vegetable garden you want to feature.

MaxineLaGardePhotography offers complimentary engagement sessions for all her wedding and elopement clients. If you are newly engaged, I’d love to hear from you!

Maxine xx

What Sets Great Calgary Photographers Apart in 2025

So iPhones are so great these days, what’s the advantage of hiring a professional photographer to capture your wedding, family, engagement or maternity celebration? Hiring a photographer in Calgary, or your local area means you’re investing in a full service, which provides three different advantages.

Firstly, your professional photographer should have professional equipment, multiple cameras and lenses, to offer a variety of shots and angles, and artistic styles, which will will render exceptional image quality and cloud storage options that are ideal for high quality printing. Professional equipment means the quality of your images will supersede any iPhone of budget friendly option. In addition, a professional photographer will also cary a second or third camera body, in order to avoid camera malfunction. Having backup camera is one of the main ways to identify a photographer.

Secondly, a professional photographer will offer a variety of services that include a private viewing gallery to easily select and view your images, a professional platform where you can print your images, order unique products like albums, frames and calendars, and offer a seamless client experience. This photography platform will offer electronic contracts, user friendly payment gateway options, and seamless portals to a variety of supplementary services, like hair and makeup recommendations, styling options, and client feedback and questionnaires.

Lastly, a professional photographer will be able to offer you peace of mind and invaluable years of experience, recommendations and guidance. Trusting your photographer to select your specific location, selecting the perfect time of day for your session, especially for wedding timelines and large group photography, is invaluable. Especially for wedding photography, selecting a professional who has photographed dozens or hundreds of weddings can creatively ensure solutions and pivot when problems arise on your special day.

Mini Branding Sessions

I am now offering mini branding sessions and here are some of the results. These are great for business owners, young professionals, content creators and board members. Even those wanting a brand refresh or more content for their socials can benefit from these branding mini sessions. Please send me an email or DM to inquire. Dates will vary and I offer these 2 times per year.

Badlands Anniversary Photoshoot

I love this badlands sunset anniversary photoshoot. Last summer, I have the pleasure of photographing Garrett and Kass’s beautiful city wedding at the Brand Room at the Calgary BMO Center. Sadly, as wedding days can be so busy, we didn't have time for a sunset session on the wedding day, so we planned to meet up 1 year later for an anniversary photography session. I just love the results!

Drumheller, Badlands offers so much depth and drama and paired with golden hour, the results are outstanding. I hope you enjoy!

Sunset Family Fall Photos

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Alberta's Rolling Grasslands

Drumheller Mini Sessions

Stay tuned for my Dumheller mini sessions, coming this summer 2024. Mini sessions are advertised at a lower priced point, and offer less time to capture photos but still offer the opportunity to have your family photographed in an adventure location. Adventure photoshoots start at $825, depending on the location, and include a full digital download gallery and travel fees. Adventure mini session in Drumheller start at $595 for 5 photos, or $705 for 20 photos, or $$775 for all photos. Photography sessions are 25 minutes long. Please email me at maxinelagarde@gmail.com to inquire.

Fish Creek Park Summer Elopement

I loved photographing Jessica and Kelven on their laid back, summer elopement in Fish Creek Park. This tasteful and romantic elopement consisted of an intimate outdoor first look, a private and personal vow ceremony, followed by a playful sunset session in Fish Creek’s backyard. I love the results. Let me know what you think!

Studio Family Maternity Session

If you’re thinking about booking a studio session for your family photos, they can a great alternative to outdoor photography as they offer a controlled lighting environment, and a variety of great furniture and props for your session. I loved photographing Eriel in her third pregnancy, alongside her beautiful family, in studio. We were able to get all the shots we needed in less than 45 minutes, and because the studio space features large floor to ceiling windows and tones of natural dreamy light, every shot was so easy to edit, yielding the classic photography style Eriel wanted for this photoshoot. I’ve missed shooting in studio and this cute little family reminded me of how much fun can be!

Wedding Planning: What to expect from your wedding photographer

Planning a wedding is no easy feat and can easily lead you to feelings of overwhelm and indecisiveness. Choosing the right wedding photographer is easily one of the best ways to help streamline your planning process and recommend expert vendors and services. This article will discuss what exactly you should expect from your wedding photographer through out the wedding planning process and how choosing the right wedding photographer can help eliminate stress, provide peace of mind and expertise to help ensure your day runs smoothly.

The right wedding photographer will do so much more than photograph you and your partner on your big day. Other services include helping you create a timeline and save the dates, including a free engagement photoshoot, recommending vendors, providing input on colours palettes and florals, and meet up for location scouting and an initial coffee or wine date to ensure you and your photographer are a match. In addition to all this, your photographer should be communicating with you frequently before you your big day to ensure a plan is always in order. Here is my go wedding timeline I share with all my clients, that details when you’ll hear from me and what to expect until you tie the knot!

Right away-

• Upon signing your contract and sending through your 50% deposit, your booking is official and I'll send you my preferred vendors list.

When you're ready

• Happy wedding planning! Feel free to invite me on Pinterest, send me images on Instagram, or email me any inspiration photos of your dress, venue, color palette or floral designs. I love all this stuff, so please include me if you wish!

• Start thinking of any special items you want photographed such as rings, special shoes, matching leather jackets, or anything else that tells your story. Do you want special accessories or fun props like balloons, sparklers, or smoke bombs in your photos? It's good for me to know these things in advance, so start planning and let me know as you go.

A few months before the wedding

• Start thinking of your COMPLIMENTARY engagement session. Where do you want to be photographed and what kinds of photos are you interested in? A complimentary engagement photoshoot is included in all my wedding packages, so please take advantage. I view the engagement session as a way to practice in front of the camera before the big day.

6 weeks before the wedding

• Expect to have the following four documents ready; Wedding Timeline, Wedding Photography Timeline, Wedding Vendor Checklist, and Family Photography Wish List. We’ll have a non negotiable, sit down meeting to go over all the details of the day with a fine tooth comb 6 weeks before the wedding. Please include your wedding planner in this process and have all documents ready in advance. Don't worry, I will help you too!

1 Month before the wedding

• Your remaining balance is due. Please send me your balance through e-transfer to maxinelagarde@gmail.com

10 days before the wedding

• At this time, we will go over all details and make a contingency plan for poor weather and any last minute changes.If you have a wedding planner, please invite them to this meeting.

Free engagement photoshoot for all my wedding couples

I love the way Kelven and Jessica’s YYC winter elopement photos turned out. We lucked out with this beautiful warm winter day in February in Crescent Heights, and Kelven and Jessica were so sweet to photograph. They were slightly nervous, as this photoshoot was there first time being photographed together. This is, hands downs, the best way to practice being comfortable in front of the camera before your big day, so I was thrilled to book their complimentary engagement session and help them create some great memories before their June elopement, later this year. All my wedding clients receive a complimentary engagement session when they book with Maxine LaGarde Photography. Please send me an inquiry if you’re newly engaged, and let’s book your free photoshoot!

Kick Ass Flash Course- By Justine Milton

This blog post is for all my photographer friends in the photography community. Last year I decided to invest in my business and in myself, and I joined a professional development community led by accredited and internationally published photographer Justine Milton. Yah, she’s kind of a big deal, and she really knows her stuff, so trust that if you join, you’ll be in great hands.

Justine offers a one-of-a-kind, comprehensive “Kick Ass Flash Course” to teach you all things “artificial light”. This flash course is jam packed so much useful information to teach you how to master using artificial light, in the most challenging lighting situations. Justine’s course explains, in-depth and specific examples on how to master artificial light to create soft and dreamy or moody images.  As I once specialized in natural light photography, I knew I needed to invest in this Kick Ass Flash Courses to improve my indoor photography skills, and especially to transform my wedding photography. Wedding photography is probably the trickiest photography of all. Often, you are photographing guests in uncontrolled lighting environments with various lighting sources, and distractions, with ridged time constrains.  Justin Milton’s lighting course helped me hone my skills on using artificial light and helped me put this new knowledge into practical use to level up my business. Justine goes over in detail the following topics.

·       CAMERA SETTINGS

·       FLASH SETTINGS

·       COURTEOUS FLASH USE

·       AMBIENT LIGHT

·       VIDEO LIGHT

·       ON CAMERA DIRECT

·       BOUNCE FLASH

·       OFF CAMERA FLASH

In addition to this comprehensive hands-on style of teaching, Justine is always available and ready to help her students learn. She recruits the help of her husband in the course videos, to help demonstrate and explain each concept. Her examples are clearly explained in great detail. She even shares her personal list of go-to flashes and camera gear and provides links on where to purchase your set up.

If you're interested in leveling up your business, learning some new skills from a real pro, and tapping into a new market of photography, Justine milton's Kick Ass Flash Course is definitely for you. For limited time only, I have a very special discount code to share with all of my readers. This discount code is available through to March 20th. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions about this flash course, or if you're on the fence, I'd love to hear from you.

Discount Code: learnwithme

It takes 35% off the price of the course!

SUMMER TIME FAMILY PHOTOSHOOT

Everyone loves fall family photos. The cool crisp air, the beautiful colours in the leaves mixed in with a warm sunset and cool breeze always make for stunning photos. Oh, and it’s also my personal opinion that this weather makes for the best Christmas card photos too. This blog post is a friendly reminder to all families wanting to book a fall photoshoot for Christmas card photos, that fall is my busiest time of year for family photos. Please don’t wait too long to book your family session, booking 3-4 weeks in advance will secure you a spot this fall season!

Calgary City Skyline

The cutest engagement session in the heart of Calgary! This is definitely my new favourite spot for all my clients wanting something a little edgier and wanting to keep it local. Congratulations on your engagement Greg and Kassy! I hope you love these shots as much as I do.