Ashley and Duncan are from the UK, and came out to Whistler for an extended vacation, and thought they would get married while they were out here. To make it really special, they decided to get Blackcomb Aviation fly them up to Beverly Lake on the back side of Rainbow Mountain for a high altitude wedding.
Here's a link to the wedding album I designed for them.
I don't to photograph in a lot of cathedrals, but this is way better.
Ashley gets a new hairdo as the helicopter takes off.
I love doing black and white landscapes, and it was a beautiful day for it.
Dale the mountain guide leads the parents over from the helicopter. It made for quite the entry.
Ashley and Duncan get a lashing as the helicopter lands to collect us.
While I love being in the high alpine for weddings, if there's a lot of snow, it's sometimes tough to get a good portrait, so we stopped off at Green Lake for a quick portrait session.
I put this little animation together of the helicopter taking off and landing. I thought it looked pretty cool.
Tech Stuff
A helicopter wedding is tough thing to co-ordinate, especially in the winter. Before Ashley and Duncan arrived, I had a long talk with Dale, the mountain guide, to make sure we were in a safe area, and to see if he had any off limits areas to keep out of. Avalanches and steep slopes are a real hazards in the back country. Helicopters, especially when they're running, are very dangerous to be moving around, so you want to have someone there who really knows their stuff.
I packed all my gear in a backpack, as the rotor blast from the helicopter blows snow into pretty much every crevice imaginable, and you want to have as much as possible packed away.
