Melissa + Jen | LGBTQ+ Micro Wedding at Compass Rose Suites
Some wedding days are big, elaborate celebrations. Others are intentionally smaller—bringing together the people who matter most and creating space to actually slow down and experience the day.
Melissa and Jen's wedding was beautifully the latter.
They were married at Compass Rose Suites in Prince Edward County, Ontario, an intimate countryside venue surrounded by 100 acres of fields, gardens and mature trees.
From the beginning, their day felt relaxed, personal and completely their own.
One of my favourite things about photographing smaller weddings is the freedom they create. With fewer people and less pressure to move through a packed traditional wedding timeline, there is often more room for the moments that happen naturally—the conversations, laughter, quiet glances and interactions between the couple and the people closest to them.
And those are almost always the moments I'm most interested in photographing.
A Wedding at Compass Rose Suites
Compass Rose Suites is also an incredible setting for an intimate wedding because there are so many different spaces to explore without ever having to leave the property.
The venue includes a beautifully designed four-bedroom farmhouse, a glass greenhouse filled with tropical plants and antique furniture, lush gardens, open fields, mature trees and a rustic open-air barn.
For photography, it's a bit of a dream.
Instead of spending a large part of the wedding day travelling between locations, we could simply wander the property together, finding different pockets of light and scenery as the day unfolded.
That meant Melissa and Jen could spend more of their wedding actually at their wedding—something I think is especially important when photographing an intimate celebration.
An Intimate Prince Edward County Wedding
There is something especially lovely about getting married in Prince Edward County. You get the beauty and quiet of the Ontario countryside while still having access to incredible venues, food and vendors—and Compass Rose Suites brings so much of that together in one place.
Melissa and Jen were surrounded by greenery, open sky and the people they had chosen to celebrate alongside them.
Rather than trying to manufacture moments for photographs, my approach was to give them room to be together and document what naturally happened between them.
The result is exactly what I hope a wedding gallery will become: not simply a record of how everything looked, but a collection of photographs that brings you back to how the day actually felt.
Photographing LGBTQ+ Weddings
As a queer wedding photographer in Ontario, there is particular meaning for me in documenting LGBTQ+ couples celebrating their relationships openly and authentically.
I don't believe queer weddings need to reproduce traditions or expectations that weren't created with queer people in mind.
Keep the traditions you love. Change the ones you don't. Get ready together or separately. Wear a dress, a suit, both, or neither. Invite 20 people or 200. Walk down an aisle—or don't.
There isn't one correct way to have a wedding.
What matters to me is that when you look through your photographs years from now, you recognize yourselves in them.
Melissa and Jen's intimate wedding at Compass Rose Suites was a beautiful example of exactly that: a celebration centred on their relationship, their people and the experience of being together.
And it was such a privilege to document it.
Wedding Vendors
Wedding Coordinator: Celebrate with Lauren Hughes
Venue: Compass Rose Suites
Catering: Hawley Crescent Culinary
Gown: Heirlooms Bridal
Suit: Made2Measure Clothing
Florals: Miss Fleurs
Hair: There She Glows
Boutonnières: Art of Flowers Canada
Officiant: All Seasons Weddings
Looking for an LGBTQ+ wedding photographer or planning a wedding at Compass Rose Suites in Prince Edward County? I photograph weddings throughout Toronto and Ontario with a candid, documentary-inspired approach centred on genuine connection, queer joy and photographs that feel like you.
If you're planning an intimate wedding, micro wedding or celebration that does things a little differently, I'd love to hear about it. Get in touch and tell me a little about yourselves and what you're planning.