Shari + Mike
A Prairie Vow Renewal

A day dear to my heart now featured on Junebug’s Photobug site here.

Over this past year and a bit I have planned on sharing this day, but truly the words and collecting the imagery always fell short. Last evening I took the time to pour over these images and remember the day, and try to piece it together in all it’s wonderfulness. To be taken back to the drive across Alberta, where the land unexpectedly turned into rolling hills and then back into the familiarness of the prairies. How only farm houses and grain elevators acted as staccatos along the landscape. The sky that extends forever beyond those farm houses full of clouds that as children we would find shapes in. How you can see the effects of the wind as it weaves its way across the land as it weaves between the grass and crops. A land that is familiar to those that have lived there and welcoming to those who do not.

Shari and Mike, a husband and wife photographer couple who now call Vancouver home had come home to renew their vows in this place. Ten years since they had first said their vows to another in a place that several decades more before Shari’s grandfather and grandmother had exchanged theirs. A structure bent with time and the weather, sighing with wind and weight, window frames skewed here and to making a motley collection of almost symmetry, it yet still stands tall, slowly emerging from the prairie as you drive towards it.

They reflected on the past decade, they spoke of the quirks that highlighted those years, made promises for the years to come, as her grandfather listened. A marriage that was a best friendship. As the sun chased the horizon we hurriedly tried to collect as much of the light as we could. It last fell upon a tower of hay bales before disappearing.

It was an honour to be a small part of this day.

If you are planning in vow renewal, whether it be in the open prairies of Saskatchewan or in Banff National Park, I would love to hear more about your plans.