During August I went to Wales for a few days with my family.  Wales certainly lived up to its reputation of being cold, wet and windy.  Here are a few photos of our dogs Pippa (Lhasa Apso x Maltese) Bella (Lhasa Apso x Shih Tzu) and my mums dog Milly (Miniture Yorkshire Terrior) for you to enjoy.

Sarah

Last Friday saw us making the short journey over to Dudley for the wedding of Emma and Tony, who booked us about a year ago following a wedding fayre.

Their chosen venue was the Village Hotel, for both the ceremony and reception.  The registrar was excellent, with no unnecessary limitations and the events manager Jenny kept the day flowing well.

The Village is  a large and capacious building, but as there are no grounds we’d pre-arranged to take the couple down to Priory Park – just a short drive away – for the all-important photos of them alone.  This is such a lovely spot with many photo opportunities.

Here then is a preview of 60 images from Emma and Tony’s wedding day.  The rest of the set will be available to view in our Client Area once the couple have returned from honeymoon and seen their presentation.

Click on the thumbnails to see the full image – use the left/right arrow keys to navigate through the set.

Because we’re usually out working on Fridays and Saturdays, it’s not often we actually get to go to the weddings of our own friends.  However Nicki and Dave booked us well over a year ago which was not only very flattering but also meant we actually got to go as guests!

We’ve been friends with these two for a few years now and many of the guests who attended were also known to us.  This does change the dynamic of our day a little.  First and foremost, we’re there to do a job – just because it’s the wedding of our friends doesn’t mean it’s any less busy or there’s any less work to do.    However it also means we get to sit down with the other guests for food and of course later in the evening the cameras do finally get put away before we return to the party.

Dave and Nicki has chosen the popular Westmead Hotel in Hopwood, just over the Birmingham/Worcestershire border.  We’d not worked here for well over a year and it was nice to see some of the improvements they’ve made. However the venue still has no proper grounds, so we had a get a bit creative for the shots of the two of them alone!

They’d gone for a slight HarryPotter  theme, with their tables named after various characters from the books and their chosen music for their ceremony and first dance taken from the films.  The fabulous artwork for the table map, name cards and menus was all created from scratch by another of their friends, professional illustrator Dave Jones.

The couple had opted for one of our guest message books – using images from their pre-wedding shoot, which we did some weeks ago.  As we stayed at the wedding much later than we would normally do, it was great to be able to see the book absolutely plastered in messages from the guests (including us!).  This is something we never normally get to see. Later in the evening, Dave had a little surprise for Nicki – an a cappella version of the old Frankie Valli song “Can’t Take My Eyes Of You”.  I must say, he did a pretty good job!

We’d like to say a big thank-you to the couple for not only inviting us to their big day, but actually hiring us to photograph it too.  It was a great privilege and we hope our work does the day justice.

As usual then we have a preview of images from the wedding day.  The entire set will be made available to view in the Client Area once Nicki and Dave have returned home from their honeymoon in New York.

Claire and Lee’s was the second of two weddings we photographed over the first weekend on August.  Their chosen venue was the lovely St Leonard’s church in Beoley, near Redditch, with the reception at Henley-in-Arden Golf and Country Club.

The vicar at St Leonard’s was welcoming and friendly, allowing us to work almost unimpeded and giving probably the best reading of 1 Corinthians 13 we’ve ever heard.  This is a bible reading we hear frequently at church weddings and is a particularly beautiful verse.  It’s not often we hear it read with such conviction.

As there was another wedding due just after, we kept Claire and Lee back for just a few minutes after the ceremony to get some photos around church before moving onto Henley.

After the meal and speeches, we took the couple off on their own across the golf course.  The gorgeous evening light was in total contrast to the drizzly rain we’d experienced throughout most of the day.

Here then is a preview of images from Claire and Lee’s wedding day.  The rest of the set will be available to view in our Client Area once the couple have returned home from honeymoon and seen their presentation.

It’s always great to get referral bookings and in the case of Natalie and Phil, they were actually guests at the wedding of Jayne and Anthony back in summer 2008.

Their chosen ceremony venue was St John’s church in Hagley – right next door to Hagley Hall.  However their reception was a few miles down the M5 at Grafton Manor – a venue we know well and one we will be returning to in the next few months.

St John’s is a particularly picturesque church and while my view towards the front was a little limited by the internal structures, we were allowed to do pretty much as we pleased.

Grafton Manor is a venue we’ve worked at several times before and it’s always nice to return.  Here we did the family group photos before everyone went in for the wedding breakfast – dodging the rain showers throughout.  After the meal, we took Natalie and Phil off for a tour of the rear gardens for their ‘couple’ photos.

Here then is a preview of 60 images from Natalie and Phil’s big day.  The rest will be made available in our Client Area once the couple have returned from honeymoon and have seen their presentation.

Click on the images to see the full versions.  Use the left/right arrow keys to navigate through the set.