Andrew and Roxana

We've recently started to use the fantastic Graphistudio albums. I don't know why we didn't do it sooner, they're amazing!

The pages are from Andrew & Roxana's wedding in May. You've never met a more bubbly person than Roxana, she never stops smiling! At the wedding I realised her brother is exactly the same. This is him in the background on the right hand page.

The wedding was held at a lovely little church in Oswaldtwistle, we've worked there a couple of times now. The vicar is so nice and happy to let one of us stay at the front by the alter to get close ups of those really important pictures like the exchange of the rings. We never abuse the privilege though and always stay very low key and as unobtrusive as possible.

It was one of those unusual days for England, the sun was shining and it was lovely and warm so we took the opportunity to get a lot of the candid and semi formal photos in the grounds of the church while guests were mingling, it often at these times that we get the best pictures - when people aren't aware they're being photographed and they're al lovely and relaxed.

After the church all the guests jumped on to this London bus to go the three reception venue, Whitehall Hotel in Darwen. Why a London bus? The wedding had a 'north and south' theme as the bride is a northerner and the groom is from London. The bride and groom arrived at the venue in the tuctuc, now that's what I call arriving in style.

The pearly king and queen were wonderful, they'd brought a barrel organ with them and they worked very hard entertaining the guests until it was time for them to go in for their meal.

It was a a lively wedding to shoot, a riot of colour, accents and unusual and fun details like the Smurf wedding cake, everyone had a whale of a time, including us.

August Bank Holiday

How can it almost be September already? By my reckoning we should still be somewhere around April!

It's a busy, busy weekend for me and Bob. We have weddings booked for today and for Sunday, although strangely, we have a Saturday off. Most unusual.

I've been keeping a close eye on the weather all week, particularly as our Sunday wedding is supposed to take place outdoors in the lovely gardens of Mytton Fold. Fingers crossed. AS I write this it's sweeping down with rain. I'm thinking we may need to take some extra lighting kit with us today.

Bob's particularly excited about this wedding because he gets to use the super duper new camera we've just invested in. It will be it's first proper outing today. It's a good job it's waterproof!

I've got loads of pictures ready to post for you but I can't really do it until the brides and grooms have seen them first. There'll be a bumper crop for you too see by the end of next week.

Right, time to double check all the kit and get it packed up in the car. Bye for now.

Paint, frogs and flowers - it's all in a days work.

Every now and then it's nice to have a little bit of family fun. I came up with an idea to keep the grandchildren amused for half a day at the studio. The idea was for them to build and paint themselves a set and then do a little performance in it which we could film. The day started easily enough, a quick rummage round the shed for paints and brushes followed by a trip to Matalan to buy frog green tights, a couple of lei's, party blowers and some flowers. I have all manner of other props and fabrics at the studio so there was plenty of stuff for inspiration.

Back at the studio I resurrected the remains of an old paper roll backdrop for them to paint just in time for DIL arriving with the kids. All the ideas on how they wanted the set to look flowed freely, kids have amazing imaginations, I loved it. When the flood of ideas had slowed to a manageable trickle we set about creating the set while poor DIL was sent on errands here there and everywhere to get bits we needed, including DD and granddaughter No. 3.

Then it was all hands on deck:

Some were more easily distracted than others.

" Cool! A microphone! They never said we'd be having a karaoke.. I will surviiiiiiive oh yeah...."

" Right then, back to work. Err.. what was it I was supposed to do with that paint?"

Tools down! Lunchtime!!

" D'you know, I bet this painting'll be worth millions in a few years."

It's finished!!

Time to bring on the frogs....

"what's that in your hand. You're hiding something. It's a spider. It's a spider isn't it? I know it's a spider. I hate spiders!!"

And finally we had a happy(ish) band of frogs.

We ran out of time before we got everything done as we wanted to although we did a couple of quick practice runs through for the camera. Aaaaww it was soooo cute, it brought a tear to my eye. We'll be doing the filming properly next week so I'll post it on here for you as soon as it's ready.

Wow! Babies

Here are a few of the images we got from a studio shoot with baby Ellie yesterday. I'd been warned when she arrived that she was feeling a bit grumpy and tired. Grumpy? Really? Grumpy babies like this I can cope with! She was delightful and did exactly what we wanted her to. Truly a future model in the making.

Chris & Laura

The wedding of Chris and laura was one of those that stick in the memory just because everyone involved in it were so lovely. Laura was the most laid back bride ever and Chris just spent the day grinning from ear to ear.

The day had started off with torrential rain but just before they set off to the beautiful church, it eased off and the afternoon, while it wasn't exactly glorious was certainly dry and warm. Perfect.

Here's laura checking the weather before setting off to the church.

I love the bridal prep part of the day, quite often it's organised chaos, as I suspect it will be when our daughter gets married next year,( no, we aren't doing the photography) but at this wedding it was, calm, serene and totally stress free.

While I'm at the brides house, Bob, trots off to the grooms house for a few shots of the lads. I think we are the only company in this area who do both bride and groom prep pictures. We get some great shots and of course it's a good time to meet all the other important members of the bridal party.

At the church the bride's Mum had thought of everything, even matching pink umbrella's for the bridesmaids in case it continued to rain.


The reception was held at Ferrari's in Longridge, a beautiful venue with fabulous, Italian style gardens. By this time we'd got all the formal shots in the bag and were having a bit of fun.


I'm not sure they realised we could still see them under the veil!!

Album design

One of my favourite tasks, after shooting a wedding, is designing the album. It would be so easy to have a set of standard templates and just drop photos on to them but I think that as every couple are different, then the album should be as well. Here are a couple of pages from Clare and Andy's wedding. They got married in May at Sparth House. We've shot several weddings there now, it's fast becoming one of my favourite venues not least because Warren, the manager there is brilliant. Nothing is too much trouble - and he gave me coffee. Anyone who gives me coffee is alright by me!

I loved the colour scheme in this wedding, red being one of my favourite colours, it was all beautifully done . The flowers were my favourite flowers as well, gerbera's. I always think they are a bit like me, loud, cheeky and cheerful!

Wedding Season

Here is a taster of a wedding we shot recently at Whitehall Hotel, Darwen. More later.