Van Daele & Russell

Shawn is AMAZING. He has been great since we first starting emailing about booking Van Daele and Russell for our wedding photography!
Our engagement photos had to be rescheduled 3 times due to weather and Shawn made sure to accommodate new dates and made himself available on very short notice to get our engagement photos done!
We finally got to meet Shawn just the other week to do our engagement photos and all I can say is WOW! He is literally AMAZING! Both Kyle and I were nervous and thought pictures may be awkward as we had never done anything like this before! But Shawn made it such a great experience, coaching us on how to pose and letting us be us; capturing amazing moments that we will cherish forever!
Kyle and I are so excited to work with Shawn for our wedding next year and can’t wait to see what beautiful pictures he captures!

When we became engaged in November 2018 we had only one photographer in mind and immediately contacted Van Daele & Russel. The time finally came to have our engagement photos this week and we cannot thank Shawn enough for an incredible experience. We felt comfortable throughout the entire session, his creativity and ability to capture our relationship in a fun loving way was outstanding. The resulting photos are more than we could have ever imagined. We are beyond excited to share our wedding day with Shawn and see the beautiful photos to come!

Shawn was our wedding photographer. He took phenomenal photos - so we hired him for my maternity photos when I was pregnant with my first child. We paid him IN FULL up front.
He took my photos March 5th 2021.
On April 5th I asked if they would be ready before my daughters birth and he promised them within the week.
On April 27th (after she had been born) I requested them again and was again told I would have them within the week.
On May 21st I text him inquiring where my photos were. No reply.
Each time I messaged him I would have to send multiple texts to his phone and messages to his facebook account just to get his attention/make sure he saw them. He took WEEKS to reply and often just never did. (Keep in mind I have him on all social media accounts and though he couldn’t find the time to reply to me he could still most multiple times each day on all platforms...)
I messaged him again June 3rd. He once again promised I would have my photos - this time by the end of the day.
It is now June 8th and Shawn has chosen to ignore every message I’ve sent over the last 5 days. I have sent messages to his phone, Facebook, personal Instagram account and photography account. All my messages have been “delivered” and yet no reply to anything.
I became so upset and frustrated I asked my husband to take over trying to contact him. He messaged Shawn many times over the last 3 months and has not received one reply.
We are out $370 not to mention the only maternity photos I had taken. I’m a brand new mom with zero photos of my pregnancy because of this horrible person. He has caused me so much stress and anxiety. He has withheld the photos I was so excited to one day share with my daughter. He is SO unreliable, unprofessional, and OBVIOUSLY DOES NOT CARE THAT WHEN SOMEONE HIRES HIM TO DOCUMENT A MAJOR LIFE MOMENT HE HAS A RESPONSIBILITY TO DELIVER THE PHOTOS HE TOOK or at the very least RESPOND TO A PAYING CUSTOMER.
I cannot stress this enough: DO NOT HIRE SHAWN.

The only thing I knew I wanted for our wedding was Van Daele & Russell as our photographers! We just worked with Shawn for our engagement shoot and the photos are absolutely stunning! We were so nervous, but Shawn calmed us immediately. I didn't know that a photoshoot could be so fun! He found all our best angles, and the simple, everyday locations we chose turned out beautifully. From our first few emails, it really showed that Shawn and Clint love what they do and care so much for the couples they work with. Best decision we made!

There are no words that can describe the level of professionalism, creativity, and raw talent that encapsulates the quality of work that VanDaele and Russell produce. I knew from viewing my friend's wedding pictures on Facebook that these guys needed to capture our special day- and that has been the best wedding decision we have made thus far. We first met Clint at our engagement shoot. Prior to our initial meeting, he was in constant contact with us, trying to understand the vision we had for our engagement pictures. I felt HEARD by him.
Right from the moment my fiance and I met Clint, we instantly hit it off. He made us feel comfortable in-front of the camera and provided us with the perfect amount of direction the fiance and I needed to get the right shots. I wish I had a GoPro to videotape how dedicated Clint was in perfecting his angles-he was crouched in bushes, branches, and swinging over ledges just to ensure he captured the perfect shot for us.
What really blew me away, is how he asked how we met and re-created that moment through a picture (SO CREATIVE!) Emotions took over when we received our engagement teaser pictures. Each picture was absolutely perfect and flawless and Brough us back to that moment when it was just the two of us, together in happiness in our own little world:) Their motto really stands true: whimsical, magical, romantic and timeless. The magic that they create makes my Disney Princess heart BEYOND happy. We cannot WAIT to have them with us, as they capture our special day. I will probably need a box of tissues when I look at our wedding pictures (haha). Clint, you are absolutely amazing, professional, creative, and artistic! For any bride and groom getting married, they are the best of the best! Just look at their galleries and witness the true beauty of their work:) Love you guys! Can't wait for the BIG DAY! xoxo

I knew for 11yrs I would have Clint for my wedding photographer and I almost want to do it again it was so great! I'm a goof in front of a camera and he made us look so incredible that I haven't stopped smiling since I saw our pics. He captures the essence of the couple. We goofed off a lot and he caught all the fun jokes and laughs we had. There's lots of good photography out there, but then there's a great photographer. He feels like part of the wedding, not just an outsider trying to catch moments. If you can book him, do it now.

My fiancee and I are starting to receive our pictures back from our engagement session with Clint and we are SO IMPRESSED! Our family and friends absolutely love our pictures and exclaim how much they truly capture our relationship. Working with Clint was so much fun and he really took the time to make us feel comfortable with the camera. He made sure to ask us what our vision was with our pictures and he gave us that plus more! We are very excited to see the rest of our photos and work with Van Daele once again at our wedding!!

When I first met Clint at our engagement shoot I knew we made the best possible decision picking Van Daele & Russell as our photographers for our wedding. He immediately made me and my (now) husband so comfortable despite us both not normally being comfortable in front of the camera. On our wedding day, Clint showed up right on time and immediately made me feel so comfortable and confident. Working with him and Gord was amazing! Our guests even commented on how wonderful they seemed ! And my Mother was even raving about how great Clint was before even seeing photos. He is so truly personable and a genuinely wonderful human! AND on top of it all he produces the most WONDERFUL photos. When I got my teaser photos from our wedding I literally cried. They were perfect. So candid. So real! I’m just so thrilled they were a part of our day! I literally can’t say enough good about them! Thank you thank you thank you !!

As a little girl, I always dreamed of my wedding day. Waking up, getting dressed, the ceremony, the reception, the dance. Every single little thing, it was so important to me that our special moments and details would be captured through our wedding photographs, so that we could remember them for the rest of our lives. Hands down, the best decision my fiancé and I made, was to have Shawn as our wedding photographer. He was kind, inquisitive, calm, organized and beyond talented, with every single thing he did, every step of the way, from the moment we messaged him and met him, to after our wedding day. He was such a pleasure to talk with, plan our day with, and to be around when our special day arrived. He was so relaxed, yet so focused and just did such an incredible job. On top of being such a wonderful and kind person, his talent and skills are just out of this world incredible, and are beyond stunning. He captured every single detail, every single part of our day and night, and words will never be able to explain how special his photos are to us, and how beautiful of a job he did. We will be forever indebted to Shawn and the moments that he captured. It was the best decision we ever made and we will never be able to thank him enough. Truly, from the bottom of our hearts, when your special day comes, picking Shawn to capture your wedding will be the best decision you make, we promise you that! Thank you Shawn for everything, we are so beyond grateful that we found you.

Long review, but condensed version: get this man as your photographer it is WORTH it! :D

Shawn was one of the best decisions we made for our wedding, I’ll just start off by saying that. We initially met him at our engagement photo session, and after maybe a few awkward photos, he made us feel comfortable with the confidence he displays in how he wants you to pose. I would definitely recommend doing an engagement photo with him! First, you get amazing photos, not once, but twice (with your wedding); second, it offers opportunities to help guide him to achieve your vision for your wedding.

What I think makes Shawn an incredible, top-notch photographer is his versatility in photography style. Often, it seems that many photographers have one type of look/filter setting that they use…but not Shawn. After looking at numerous photos from different weddings from Vandaele and Russell, it was evident to me that they work very hard to achieve your vision and style. Different photo styles can really express the type of personality the relationship between you and your SO. He fully captured the dreamy, magical, romantic look that we were looking for!

Shawn could be a ninja part-time. During the wedding ceremony and reception as he was taking photos, both of us noted that we never noticed him taking photos. He was able to capture amazing candids of our guests and us throughout the day without any interruption. During the wedding ceremony specifically, he literally almost got every perspective shot all around the ceremony area which is awesome!!

Another aspect of Shawn I really appreciated was his high attention to detail and confidence to command either the two of us or our massive wedding party to look organized. During our wedding day we were a little crunched for time prior to the ceremony (which was when we were taking the majority of the photos), Shawn was a cool cucumber and worked swift and efficiently. He takes any pressure off of you to organize your wedding party into organized form (which was amazing) so that you can enjoy the day with less stress.
Further (as I have also an attention to detail), Shawn’s attention to detail is incredible. He makes sure you are centred and that everything is in place (which again, is great to have to not worry about because these pictures are a one time deal).

Overall, Shawn makes you feel comfortable and confident on your wedding day, either posing in photos or organization for the day. The photographer is someone that you spend a large part of the day with, and we both agree that Shawn is an absolute pleasure to work with! And above all else, his photos are amazing!! The colours, the dreamy looks, the sunset skies….everyone that I’ve talked to loves his engagement photos and the wedding teasers we’ve seen so far! If there’s anything you spend money on at your wedding, I believe Shawn’s talent should be one of them! Thanks Shawn.