From Vancouver to Bali: What 6 Years of Photographing Weddings in Canada Taught Me Before Building Luxima
By Lucky Junansa — Founder, Luxima Wedding Photography
Becoming a documentary wedding photographer in Bali was not something that happened here. It happened six thousand kilometres away — in the rain, in the cold, in a city that taught me everything I didn’t know I was missing.
This is that story.
There’s a specific kind of cold I still remember.
It was December in Vancouver. The kind of morning where the fog sits low over the mountains and the city feels hushed. I was setting up for an engagement session in Gastown — brick walls, rain-slicked cobblestones, umbrellas everywhere. My couple arrived nervous, unsure of how to move, unsure of where to look.
Thirty minutes later, they had forgotten I was there.
That moment — a couple laughing together in the rain on a Thursday morning in Gastown — was when I understood what changes everything about this work. Not technique. Not timing. The fact that they had already spent two hours with me before their wedding day. The fact that I wasn’t a stranger.
That understanding is what I brought home to Bali. It’s the foundation of everything Luxima stands for.
Why I Left Bali in 2017
I had been photographing in Bali for years. Weddings, ceremonies, portraits. By most measures, I was doing well. But I kept asking myself what it would take to become a documentary wedding photographer in Bali who actually documented a day — not just styled it.
Back then, wedding timelines in Bali were built around photo locations, not moments. Thirty minutes for sunset portraits at the cliff. Another location for the first look. Another for the family grouping. The couple moved from spot to spot on a schedule that had nothing to do with how their day was actually unfolding.
I kept seeing the same thing: a wedding production that looked beautiful in the final gallery but didn’t document what actually happened. The ceremony finished and the family was already moving to the next setup. The quiet moment between a father and his daughter before she walked down the aisle — nobody caught it, because nobody was watching for it.
I wasn’t sure how to fix it from inside. So I left to figure it out.
In 2017, I moved to Vancouver, Canada — not to run away from Bali, but to learn what I was missing.
What Six Years in North America Taught Me About Documentary Wedding Photography
1. The Engagement Session Changes Everything
In North America, the engagement session isn’t optional. It’s a standard part of the process — a 1 to 2 hour shoot, weeks or months before the wedding, where the photographer and couple simply spend time together.
At first I saw it as a bonus service. Then I understood what it actually is: the foundation of trust.
By the time a wedding day arrives, I’m not a stranger with a camera. I’m someone they’ve already laughed with. Someone they’ve already forgotten about in the middle of a good conversation. That changes how people carry themselves on their wedding day. It changes how honest their photographs become.
I also fell deeper in love with street photography during those years in North America — the discipline of capturing life as it unfolds, honest and unfiltered. That philosophy shaped how I started approaching weddings. A wedding is life at its most heightened. Every emotion is real. Every moment is unrepeatable. The camera should chase that, not interrupt it.
This is something most photographers in Bali still don’t practice. It’s something I brought back with me, and something I now consider non-negotiable for my couples.
2. Professionalism Is a Form of Care
Shooting weddings in Canada meant operating in conditions that had no margin for error. Winter timelines where sunset happened at 4pm and golden hour lasted twenty minutes. Outdoor ceremonies in October where the light changed every five minutes and you had one chance to get the shot. Multicultural weddings where one side of the family followed a Hindu ceremony timeline and the other side was waiting for a Christian blessing — and my job was to move between both without disrupting either.
I learned to build detailed shot lists from questionnaires I sent weeks in advance. To arrive at every venue an hour early and walk the space before anyone else arrived. To have a backup plan for the backup plan — because in Vancouver in November, it was going to rain.
That level of preparation isn’t about being rigid. It’s about having enough control over the logistics that you can let the emotional moments happen without missing them.
3. Storytelling Has Standards
In North America, I worked with studios where delivering eight hundred images from a wedding was considered lazy editing — not generous. The expectation was a tightly curated gallery where every frame had a reason to exist. You couldn’t pad it with five near-identical shots of the same moment and call it coverage. You had to choose.
That discipline changed how I shoot. Before I raise the camera, I ask myself what the image is actually saying. If I can’t answer that, I wait.
I also earned recognition during those years that I’m proud of — work featured in Wedlux Magazine and placing in a competition with Fearless Photographers, a global community built around documentary wedding photography. What mattered to me about both wasn’t the credential. It was the confirmation that the approach I was developing — patient, observational, unhurried — had a standard it could be held to.
4. Multicultural Weddings Taught Me to Listen
Over six years, I documented weddings for couples from dozens of different backgrounds — Chinese-Canadian, Filipino, South Asian, Japanese, European, Australian, and more. Each culture carries its own rituals, its own emotional vocabulary, its own way of expressing love.
I learned to research before every wedding. To ask questions. To understand what mattered to each couple specifically, not generically.
This became invaluable when I returned to Bali — a destination that draws couples from every corner of the world, each bringing their own traditions and expectations to this island.
The Work From Those Years
Across six years, I photographed weddings and sessions in locations I’m still grateful to have experienced.
Whistler, British Columbia — A helicopter landed on a glacier. A couple stepped out into the white silence of the mountains, dressed for their wedding. No guests. No ceremony. Just them, the snow, and the kind of stillness that makes you hold your breath.
Old Montreal, Quebec — Cobblestone streets, European architecture, afternoon light off stone walls. A connection session with a couple who drove twelve hours to shoot there. They wanted something that felt like a different world. Montreal gave us exactly that.
David Lam Park, Vancouver — Cherry blossom season. The kind of soft pink light that only lasts two weeks a year. A couple who had the instinct to book their session for exactly that window. Some couples understand the light before you explain it to them.
Gastown, Vancouver — Rain, brick walls, a couple who stopped caring about the weather about ten minutes in. The images from that session still remind me why I love this work.
These aren’t portfolio pieces I pull out to impress anyone. They’re part of how I trained my eye — and how I grew into the documentary wedding photographer in Bali I wanted to become.
Why I Came Home: Building Luxima as a Documentary Wedding Photographer in Bali
In 2023, I returned to Bali.
Not because Canada wasn’t good to me. It was. Six years of full-time work, couples from across the world, friendships with photographers I deeply respect.
I came home because something kept pulling me back to this island — not nostalgia, but a clearer sense of what I wanted to build. I had spent six years learning to document weddings in a way that felt honest. And I knew that Bali, with all the light and ceremony and emotion it holds, was the place I wanted to do that work.
But I also came back with a sharper eye for what was missing here. Couples flying across the world to get married in Bali — from Australia, Canada, the UK, Europe — deserve photographers who understand how international couples think, communicate, and celebrate. Who can move fluidly between a Hindu ceremony and a civil blessing and a family dinner with guests from six different countries. Who know that the most important moment of the day might not be the first dance or the bouquet toss — it might be a quiet glance between two people in a corner that no one else caught.
I had spent six years training exactly for that.
What This Means for You
When you book Luxima, here is what is concretely different.
Before your wedding day, we spend real time together — a proper engagement or pre-wedding session, not a quick phone call. By the time your wedding morning arrives, I am not a new face with a camera. I am someone you have already spent hours laughing with, someone whose presence in the room you have already forgotten about.
On the day itself, I disappear. I am not directing you between locations or calling out instructions across the ceremony. I am watching for the moments that are already happening — and I know how to wait for them without missing them.
After your wedding, every image in your gallery will have earned its place. Not a single frame is filler.
This is what six years in North America taught me to do. And it is what I came back to Bali to offer — as a documentary wedding photographer in Bali who chose this island deliberately, after having options elsewhere.
Let’s Talk
If you’re coming to Bali and want wedding photos that feel honest ten years from now — not just beautiful for the week after — I’d love to hear about what you’re planning.
Or explore more of what we do:
- Our Services
- About Lucky & Luxima
- Portfolio
- How Much Does a Bali Wedding Photographer Cost?
- Best Time to Get Married in Bali
Lucky Junansa is the founder of Luxima Wedding Photography and a documentary wedding photographer based in Bali, Indonesia. He spent six years as a full-time wedding photographer in Vancouver, Canada, documenting weddings and sessions across British Columbia, Quebec, Alberta, Ontario, and beyond.
