I ran some adverts a while ago with the tag line “Details Matter”. If you come over to the gallery then you’ll see some examples of what I mean. A wedding is full of details from the favours you agonised over to the table plan to the colour of the flowers and on and on.

Becky and Matt’s wedding at Courtstairs was no exception - in fact they had come up with some great ideas of their own. Once the full day goes into the client area you’ll see loads of them. In the meantime here is the story of the day.

Here’s Becky all ready for her wedding to Matt. Despite a small delay at the hairdressers, her bridesmaids Kirby, Sarah, Claire and Lindsey had her ready on time and she looked beautiful.

The bridesmaids didn’t look too bad either

But mysteriously, nobody knows exactly who it was that arranged for the Red Arrows to fly past as she made her arrival at Courtstairs….

Inside the guys were far too busy to be distracted by cars and fast planes. Here are groom Matt, best man Neil and ushers Keith, Gareth and Daniel hard at work getting ready for the wedding. OK, technically speaking they are lounging. But note that there’s not a beer bottle in sight. they had to leave them at the front or the registrar could have called the whole thing off!

And then…….they were married. In a beautiful open air ceremony with jazz playing, friends cheering and a perfect summer’s day. Makes a change from last week’s rain!

And of course no wedding is complete without confetti. A brief check of the wind direction and we had Matt and Becky in the perfect position for their friends to cover them completely.

Of course despite his protests we needed at least one picture of Matt looking cool -

fortunately his new wife was there to lend a hand…..

Oh and did I mention the details? How’s this for a great wedding idea to steal? Becky and Matt had made place cards for everybody - complete with pictures of their guests!

And as always Cortstairs looked fabulous….

A long day and lots of pictures. But we managed to get all the way to the end without mentioning Sarah and Kirby’s special bridesmaid underwear….

Plenty more to see when Rebecca and Matt are back from honeymoon. In the meantime, please do what their sign says!

Remember Emily and Astrit?  They were married just over a week ago.  Beautiful bride, beautiful setting, handsome groom.  Horrendous weather.  Really, I always say that I’m lucky with weather.  Last week I was lucky in that the marquee didn’t blow away :).

Anyway, they fly out to Kosova tomorrow to get married all over again next week.  So I hustled the pictures through processing.

There’s a highlight show below and if you want to see more then you can jump on over to the client site where you can see every picture from their wedding at Farringtons School

The slideshow requires Flash so if you don’t see anything after a moment or two then either you have Flash turned off or you’re on an old version. Their gallery doesn’t need all this fancy stuff and you can see all their pictures there.

Most pictures of wedding start with the bride. Instead, here’s Astrit. Kosovan, groom for the day, evangelical preacher and all round cool guy. He also has a bit of a way with words.

We got a little wet at his wedding to Emily. OK, we got very wet. The heavens opened and what could have been one of the most beautiful days ever turned into one of the wettest. It was so bad that a couple of the guests were even heard to say that it was a pity and that it might spoil the day a little. Then Astrit stood up for his speech and explained. He’s been in England for 5 days and everything was wonderful. Now the whole country was crying because he had the best girl. And all of a sudden the rain didn’t matter at all.

Of course, all the best days start with…..ironing. Not the most traditional start to the day but then Emily’s one of those people. If something needs doing then she’ll get it done. Actually, I got the impression that the whole family is like that. Her mother Ruth had done her fair share of veil ironing already in the morning and Emily was finishing it off. And it was worth it. What a veil.

And then it was back to school. They were married in the beautiful chapel at Farrington’s where Emily had been head girl just a few years before.

And of course, even the head girl likes to play naughty schoolgirl some times. Especially with bridesmaid Amy to encourage her. And the trouble makers on the back row

More pictures coming very soon. Just as soon as I’ve dried out. I mentioned the rain, right?

There’s a highlight show below and if you want to see more then you can jump on over to the client site where you can see every picture from their wedding in Sittingbourne and the pictures from Great Higham Barn.

The slideshow requires Flash so if you don’t see anything after a moment or two then either you have Flash turned off or you’re on an old version. Their gallery doesn’t need all this fancy stuff and you can see all their pictures there.

If you want to see more then you’ll find their gallery on our client site.

You can watch some of the highlights below and below or if you want to see the whole thing (and maybe buy some copies) then there’s a link to their personal gallery.

The slideshow requires Flash so if you don’t see anything after a moment or two then either you have Flash turned off or you’re on an old version. Their gallery doesn’t need any of this techie stuff and you can see all their pictures there.

If you want to see more then you’ll find their gallery on our client site.

Meet Becky. Becky likes to plan. A lot.

In fact, I first met Becky nearly two years ago when she booked be to photograph her wedding to Allen. When I met her a few weeks ago to finalise arrangement she had a huge bag full of paper planning her wedding. But you know what? It all worked out perfectly.

This was the first sight that greeted me as I arrived at her mother’s house on the morning of the wedding. Even the trees in the garden were beautifully decorated. Few people saw them because the wedding was at Garlinge Methodist Church and the reception was at St Augustine’s in Westgate. But still, everything was just right.

Even August (the cat) put in an appearance. Becky had told me how nice it would be to have a picture of her and as usual with cats I was a little non committal. I’ve learned the hard way - dogs and horses at weddings = easy. Cats? Well they are a law unto themselves. But even August popped up right on cue.

And what a wedding it was! The church was packed.

And yes - that’s six bridesmaids you can see in the front row.

I don’t believe I have ever seen so many lucky horseshoes round a bride’s wrist in my life.

Of course, there’s no point in a wedding without a groom. And the perfect match for Becky is the cool, relaxed and ever so slightly suave Allen. Honestly, absolutely nothing ruffled him all day. Not the incident with the groomsman and the boxer shorts - and certainly not Lesley, Becky’s mother at their arrival at St Augustine’s.

Probably the silliest question all day was when I said “did you have anywhere special in mind for the portraits?”. Because of course they had planned this. And had the gazebo specially decorated to look fabulous.

Of course it won’t surprise you to learn that the Ruby Room was beautifully decorated for the wedding with bows and flowers and the precise shade of purple everywhere.

Even the desert was colour coordinated….

But my favourite thing the whole day had to be the glasses. These were decorated for Becky and Allen by one of the children in her class.

And before you knew it, it was time for the first dance and for me to leave.

Loads more pictures when Becky and Allen return from Thailand. In the meantime, please leave your wishes and comments for them below.

If you take a look in the galleries then you’ll see that I’ve shot some pretty big and elaborate weddings. The “record” is somewhere over 800 guests (really - nobody knows exactly how many were there).

But less is more and smaller weddings can be a lot of fun. Like this Thursday - I was over at Sittingbourne Register Office for Julie and Terry’s wedding. That’s pretty much all of the guests plus celebrant in the shot there. The only person missing is the registrar Sarah who is right behind Terry.

Of course, having a smaller wedding doesn’t mean that you can’t bring your own security with you ;). Just kidding - that’s the best man and part time lighting assistant Bill. And apparently everybody asks if he works as a bouncer. If he wasn’t such a nice guy then I certainly wouldn’t argue with him!

And of course, there’s no need to play by the rules. “Formal” group shots don’t have to be boring. Or formal.

And if you have a beautiful barn to play with and some lovely open stairs and lots of fabulous looking bridesmaids and friends then you can play with shots like this.

But the main question I was dying to answer all day was “how many grownups can you safely get on a hammock?”. Fewer than 2….

Worth it though

Loads more pictures to come - there’s a box below for your wishes for the happy couple.

Long, long ago in a land far far away, there lived a Cheese Dragon….

Nah - I can’t keep it up. Let’s just say that we have an early contender for best cake of the year. Not only does it look like Grant and Fiona’s car with the top cut off, the passengers bear a more than striking resemblance to Grant, Fiona, Anna and Sian.

Welcome to Grant and Fiona’s wedding. And no, it’s not going to be a quiet one….

Here’s just one of the lists of flowers to decorate the London Golf Club.

With ISIS Events on hand to organise things you can bet that the lists got followed. To the letter. To give us fabulous arrangements like this.

and this…

and a couple of drops of the Toni Touch to make the main dining room look like this…

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First of all we need a bride. Here’s Fiona MARGARET Giles being buttoned into her dress by Carla…

… and just after her arrival at the London Golf Club with her bridesmaids Sasha, Rowena and Chloe.

We also need a groom. Here’s Grant MALCOLM Bloomfield on the golf course with his three (count them) best men. Sid, Cod and Benny. Honestly.

With best men like that, I think Grant was fearing the worst from their speech. Fortunately they kept it reasonably safe. Even if they did pick up the wrong copies…

But we’re getting ahead again. First there was the small matter of the wedding. I’ve been to several where there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. This time there wasn’t a straight face anywhere…

And then, suddenly, they were married……

And then it was time for a glorious afternoon’s party

Catching up with friends…

Watching Etiene change banknotes into any currency…

And of course dancing…

Grant and Fiona made it clear all along that they didn’t want a highly formal day with lots of posed pictures. But they did give me time for one portrait of the two of them.

Plenty more pictures when they are back from Italy. Why not leave your messages for the new Mr and Mrs Broomfield below?

Every once in a while, everything works out perfectly. Of course planning helps. Turkey Mill in Maidstone has one of the best “wet weather fallbacks” I’ve seen. If it rains then the wedding is held in the stunning Orangery.

But on Friday we didn’t need it. Not even slightly. A glorious July day, a beautiful bride, a suave groom and a bunch of people up for a great time in stunning surroundings. All I had to do was turn up and take pictures

Of course, with a couple looking as fabulous as this, everybody wants to get in on the act taking pictures. Yep, you spotted her lurking in the last picture……

If you’re going to have a proper English wedding, in the proper English summer in a gorgeous setting on a blisteringly hot day, well then big hats are de rigeur.

As well as killer heels…

But later in the day, it cooled a little, the music came on and high heels were replaced by dancing shoes.

As anybody who follows this site will know, I love two challenges more than any at weddings. When Camilla emailed me a couple of weeks before the wedding and said she and Mark were having fireworks I knew I was going o have one of my favourite challenges. And of course they were great - fireworks bursting over the lake made a wonderful finale to a fantastic day.

And the other favourite challenge? Well regular readers will know how popular my signature night portraits are. And that waterfall was just calling me all day. I knew it was worth persuading Camilla and Mark to take one more trip over there…..

Loads more pictures in the client gallery when Camilla and Mark get back from honeymoon. In the meantime, please leave your messages and thoughts for them below.