Ocean-loving couple has a whale of a wedding celebration

Whales welcomed at wedding photo shoot A New Brunswick couple struck photo gold during their whale watching, wedding photo shoot.

A New Brunswick couple that is passionate about the ocean now has some amazing wedding photos to help them remember their picture-perfect day.

Whales were invited to the photo shoot, but there was no guarantee they would show, so what happened next amazed them and their photographer.

Jenn Nauss and fellow photographer Jeff Cooke look back on a wedding shoot that could not have gone better.

"Nature kind of delivered that day,” said Nauss, who shot Becky Cook and John MacKenney's nuptials on a whale watching boat off Brier Island last August.

It was a small party with some very special guests.

“I knew we'd see whales,” Cook said.

And she should know, she worked on that same vessel for years.

“I don’t think any of our guests were surprised that we got married on a whale watching boat because that's just who we are,” Cook said. “But during our vows, we had whales and dolphins jumping in the background.  You know the end of The Little Mermaid? It was like that.”

“Anyone that was a first-timer, there was so much whale activity, it was over the top," said MacKenney.

Nauss's colleague Jeff Cooke couldn't believe what he was seeing when she sent him the photos.

“She showed this picture of four whales breaching,” said a super-jealous Cooke. “(I’m) glad Jenn was there for them.”

The Quispamsis, N.B., couple met four years ago and say a love of the ocean is what brought them together. Even their engagement was aquatic.

John proposed to Becky while they were scuba diving in Honduras.

“We like to have fun,” MacKenney said.

For Nauss, two photos really stand out.

“They were having a nice intimate moment off to the side of the boat, I was pretty excited about that,” said Nauss.“Two whales in one shot and everyone kind of went crazy afterwards."

The photos definitely brought back memories,” MacKenney said.

And where was the honeymoon? Vancouver Island where they -- you guessed it -- went whale-watching.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jayson Baxter.