At the end of the year the weather always promises to deliver the unexpected. However I have found that usually the unexpected is lovely autumn sunshine.

Serena and James where married in the local Church and celebrated in a cracking marquee at home.

it was a race to beat the horse drawn carriage back, I didn’t realise they could go so fast!

The day was lovely, a few familiar faces in the crowd and great dancing at the end. I don’t think there was a single person who stayed sitting. Lovely to photography, but with its own avoidance dangers. I think it was Capa who said” if your photos aren’t close enough, then your not close enough” I’d like to see him thread through a heaving dancing floor and try that again!

There is possibly the greatest ever Cake shot at about 7.50, how it survived i don’t know. It made for a fantastic triptych

Here are selection of photos from a great day.

Its lovely to get your thoughts out, and have your photos winging their way through the ether, but it can sometimes it can be a bugger to sit down and write it.

It is therefore with great joy, that I have received requests from other people to use my words and photos on their blogs.

Here are a couple of this weeks examples.

http://www.thisisweddingphotography.com/blog/monthly-topic/

http://www.tunbridgewellspeople.co.uk/groups/localshops/Planning-Wedding-Tunbridge-Wells/story-7020307-detail/story.html

The cynics among you will say that this blog post is just a cheap attempt to captilise on their hard work….. well you’d be right!

Having used Queensberry as our wedding album supplier right from the start, we have never ceased to be impressed with the quality of the albums that we get back from them.

Seeing Marcela’s designs crafted into beautiful albums is something I never tire of seeing. Its the fulfillment of the story, it’s packaged into a beautiful form, ready to be taken onto the next step of the story. Its makes wedding photography what it is: Loves story encapsulated for eternity.

I know I’m gushing, but this video of our suppliers at work reminded me of one of the joys of being a wedding photographer. Our work carrying the story of love forward.

I would love you all to watch it, you’ll understand why we love Queensberry the way we do

Made By Hand from Queensberry on Vimeo.

Deciding last year to offer pre wedding shoots to all our clients last year as part of the package, has proved to be an excellent idea.

We have been to beaches, parks, canals in order take some lovely photos. Not only do people end up with some really artistic images, we have also found that we get to know them in a really lovely natural way.

Come the weddings, we feel like guests rather than staff!! The relationship we can build over an easy afternoon somewhere, means that the photography has ceased to become an issue and is even something that is looked forward to. We are able to demonstrate how easy and fun it is to take photos together.

The pre wedding shoots takes place somewhere that has significance for the couple or is just convenient to get to.

Rather than looking to squeeze a couple of photos in before the meal, clients are now willing to take a little bit more time to ensure they get some unique images that they can look back on in years to come and say, hey I looked good! Its an all round winner, I get to take lovely photos with people that trust me and have fun, and they get a great looking album full of strong images.

Weddings are always different, people are different, venues are different, light is different, so it’s good to be able to offer the option of something a little .. well different! The pre wedding shoot opens up our clients eyes to what we might achieve if we are given a bit of room.

Thanks to all out lovely clients who have, in some cases grudgingly ( always the grooms!) submitted to a pre wedding shoot. We have been able to take some great photos, and some people now have some really lovely personal work on their walls

Rather than list them all out, here are a section of recent ones to have a look through.

Once in a while a wedding turns up that you wish you where a guest at, scratch that wish you had thought of when you got married.

It had in order of importance to the photographer:

A great couple

Fun guests

Hog roast

Cakes

Fly past

Croquet

A dingy

Guest appearance on drums by the Beatles back up drummer!

A campfire

whiskey and cigars!

Its a simple equation, happy people at a happy location and you get happy photos. If you get a happy venue owner with homemade cider you get a happy photographer after he has downed tools!

Hope my photos do justice to what was a really fun relaxed day.

I talked them into a Punt, with it’s own resident applied quantum giganomics  student, and we set of on a lovely jaunt down the Cam.

Lua ( our JRT) manged to turn the waters into a scene from pirates of the Caribbean, every duck, goose or swan had its feathers ruffled. The Japanese tourists loved it, I’m sure Lua will star in many hi def sideshows when they get back home.

Not with standing Lua’s single handed and determined effort to reduce the Cams feathered population, we had a great time, and even managed a corneto version of O SOLE MIO!

The wedding was at Elms Barn up in Suffolk. With it being a Wednesday wedding, we arrived on the Tuesday and left on the Thursday.  We really had a chance to get to know everybody and I think the photos show this.

Best Sunset images of the year so far, even if we did promise that we wouldn’t go in the field!

There is nothing like a wedding to liven up the coldish spring weekend and tickle the heart with the promises of summer.

The weather wasn’t great, the warmth of the guests and the day itself more then made up for it. The speeches where of the variety that you can almost forget to get pictures your laughing so much.

Claire had a neutral, vintage feel to the day. Along with the colours, the Routemaster bus, Claire’s wonderful dress, and fantastic setting we thought a vintage processing of the images would fit in really well.

The images have a slightly muted colour to them and really allow the strong emotions of the day to show through really well. The album is a really stylish representation of the day, and we can’t wait to see it delivered

The grooms father sang the 1st dance, a real belter and had the band that was coming on next worried!

Have a look at the photos and let me know what you think.

April weddings are always great, so says I, the great the sage on these matters!

Well, every wedding we have ever shot in April has had glorious weather. There,  I’ve now jinked next April,  so If you are reading this and planning a wedding next April,  best call the photographer 2nd on the list!

Maunsell house is a great Venue, and staffed by really wonderful people. It has such a individual style about it. Maybe not be to everyone’s tastes, but right up my street.

Its has lots of little quirks, like the huge flock of white doves that have now have taken up residence after a couple were released at a not so recent wedding, to the personal news items framed in all the loos. Look out for the Duke of Westminster story!

It was a great crowd of people and a great wedding. The house dictated a lot of natural light as flash would have killed the atmosphere.  So we mixed and mingled, even being treated to a lardy da by the fire pit. The photos are natural and fun, showing the shooting ( where yours truly let slip they he shot a bit, and then proceeded to miss everything!) through to the port and dancing.

Luckily with very resourceful and well placed contacts they were of on Honeymoon soon after, although not the planned one- thanks BA!

Well I seem to be have one of last to get it, always at the back of the queue when things are handed out!

I’ll be posting more photos and words soon. Had a bunch of really cool shoots, just before I went down, so look forward to that.

The small mercy, and being a wedding photographer, it could have proved to be an irritation, is I fell ill right between shoots, so nothing missed and Thank you to God!

Marcela mind you has had to do twice the amount of work this week, and with the added, week feeble calls for water and paracetamol from upstairs, she has been a lovely wife.

Just hope she doesn’t get it,  as the bar in care has been set rather high!

Shaun and Eda are a great couple, They have know each other for years before they started going out together properly.

It just happened that the bench where they sat down and it all started from, was just round the corner from where we started taking our photos. It’s a great end to a great set of pictures.

We are really looking forward to taking the photos at their wedding next month, and are very pleased to be their wedding photographers as they are such fun to work with.

An over cast and cloudy day gave us some great sky shots, and some real atmosphere. We discovered at the end, that they can also bust some serious moves, so we have saved a bit of that for the wedding day.

The music used on the sideshow is conveniently titled Sky, and is for a local group who we saw live during the week. They are also available for weddings and I really recommend a look, as apart from their great original work, they also do covers better than the original artists!

The contact details are at the end of the sideshow.

Remember to click on high res- photos are much clearer.

Cheers