Time for another Trash the Dress MyWeddingStory style.  Which generally means that the dress is fine!

I’ve mentioned my thoughts on the Rock the Frock, Rock the Dress, Dirty Bride, call it what you want trend.  It’s a lot of fun.  And usually the dress is actually fine  Maybe a little grubby round the edges but no need to ruin a perfectly good dress.

This week’s was no exception.  On a freezing cold day we headed down to the “less reputable” side of Canterbury in Kent.  Yeah we were a couple of hundred yards from Toddlers’ Cove, near enough to the tourist boats and in a park beautifully maintained by the council.  As “rough” as this gorgeous city gets.

Don’t worry.  That’s not a mugger.  That’s Ben given the “rugged” look.  (As in “hey, look rugged!”)

Oh and did I mention it was raining?  Like a lot.  No worries.  Lucy and Ben were fine under the underpass.  It was only me that had to stand out in the rain for the pictures….

They seemed pretty happy about it….

See all the highlights of the shoot right here – just click on the little full screen button to see them, well, full screen.

In the interests of full disclosure….these pictures were, as they say in the press, “posed by models”.  But next week it’s for real.  And Jo, I can’t promise your dress will survive.  I know you want to push it to the max and I have a very special venue all picked out…..

And for all the photographers stalking my site – all shot on a Hasselblad H3D-II 31 with 80mm or 150mm lens.  Lighting from a Bron Mobil with a little boost on a couple from an SB-800 held by Sam.  Yes, I really did carry all that kit across a muddy field in the rain.

Wow – I’m really so thrilled by this one.

A Kentish Wedding is the must read magazine for people getting married in Kent.  Not only do they have all the usual editorials and features, they have a literally indispensable guide to every licensed civil wedding and civil partnership venue in Kent.  The magazine also looks pretty nice and best of all it’s free – you can go and grab one of the 10,000 copies they print of each issue at loads of wedding fairs, register offices and civil venues in Kent.

Sounds perfect?  Well almost.  They have published lots of my pictures in their real wedding features and editorial features in the past.  But their cover has always been a little, how shall I put this, conservative.  It’s almost always a nicely composed picture of a bride or bride and groom standing demurely in front of a well known Kent landmark.  Nice.  But not really my style.  Well not any more.  Looks like they have decided to spice it up a bit.  OK a lot.

I’m absolutely thrilled that they chose to use one of my images on the cover.  I’m even more thrilled that it’s one of my favourites from last year which I think sums up my “no rules” approach to wedding photography.  Bride Tania is getting quite literally thrown across the bonnet of a car called Delilah (check the registration to figure out why, why, why….) by “new” husband Phil in front of a wall liberally tagged by the youth of Whitstable.

And in answer to the question I often get asked about this.  No, this isn’t a trash the dress session.  It isn’t a picture take out of context.  And it’s certainly not “posed by models”.  Tania and Phil’s reception was in the Old Brewery at Whitstable.  This is within yards of there – they wanted a few quick pictures on the beach .

As an extra bonus, this issue will launch at the National Wedding Show in London.  I hear the Kentish Wedding stand will be covered with it.  Goodbye conservative covers

[BTW I'll be getting some extra copies so if you miss yours then pop down the gallery for one!.  Oh and yes, that means I have 3 magazine covers at the same time in Kent. :0]

It’s a phrase every photographer seems to dread.  “Wow those pictures are great – you must have a nice camera….”. As always, What the Duck has the best take on this…

Mozart....

This is usually the start of a long tedious debate on how it’s the photographer who takes the pictures and how a “true professional” can take pictures with anything.  And that’s kind of true.  We spend a lot of time learning about light, posing, timing, framing, focusing and all those good things that you can apply to any camera and get nice results.

But pros often use rather nice cameras too.  I’ve been shooting Nikon since before they made digital cameras and I’m kind of comfortable with how they work.  In my opinion, the best camera a pro wedding photographer can use right now is the Nikon D3S though if like me you bought yours a couple of years ago the D3 is a very close second (with the D700 just a shade behind).

Or so I thought….

Some people at my recent shoots have noticed me wrestling with an odd sort of camera.  It’s big, it’s ugly and it’s slow.  But it has a name and a sound that makes lots of photographers go weak at the knees.  Yep, I just added a Hasselblad medium format digital camera to the bag.  For the camera nuts this has a sensor about twice the size of a “full frame” DSLR, 31 million pixels and true 16 bit shooting.  For everyone who fell asleep in the techie bit “it takes really nice pictures”.  Really nice.

It’s a bit of a waste to show you them on the web (though there are some pictures popping up both on this site and on my Flickr stream that have the unmistakable ‘blad look).  Why not make an appointment to pop round the gallery and see the difference for yourself?  Better still, now the camera’s nicely bedded in I’m taking bookings for 2 hour photoshoots to get to know me and go home with some really nice pictures.  Just use the contact form on the right.

And I don’t even mind if you say “you must have a really nice camera”.  Because actually I do

So it seems like only last month I was boasting about a getting pictures featured in loads of magazines including the cover of “Your Kent Wedding”.  Actually it was only last month….

Well, as you may have guessed from the picture one of my weddings has been chosen again for a magazine cover – this time it’s the fabulous gay wedding of Mel and Laura at the Lost Village of Dode.  Their civil partnership was pretty popular – the initial teaser pictures were our most read story of last year.

Congratulations to Mel and Laura and keep an eye out for more of my work in print.  Looks like editors really can’t get enough of it

Oh and remember, I don’t just supply pictures to magazines.  I also, you know, take pictures.  Weddings, civil partnerships, kids whatever.  As long as people are having fun I’d love to be there.

L-o-a-d-s to get through with our first wedding of the year.  Men with no trousers, a frog that got everywhere, two first dances and more dancing.  LOTS of dancing.

So here’s Louise in her green tracksuit.  Except it’s not just green.  It’s Celtic green.  Yep, Louise is originally from north of the border and plenty of her family had flown down from the blizzards of Scotland to, err, rather rainy Kent for the wedding.  C’mon – you were suspicious about all the “men with no trousers” bit…

Like I said, there’s a lot to cover so we’re going to fast forward a bit here.  Right to the bit where you go “wow”.

Meanwhile in St Martins, the oldest church still in use in the world, Anthony was having last minute details checked by his father Trevor.

And before you knew it, in a church that has stood on the hill just outside Canterbury for one and a half millennia, Louise Winksey and Anthony Webster were married in front of all their friends and family.

The choir filled the centuries old stone building perfectly.

Just minutes later, Louise and Anthony burst out of the door of the church into a wonderful Kentish January day.  Where of course “wonderful” means “not snowing for once and only raining a bit”.  Looks like they thought it was the best day ever .

And guess what was waiting for us when we got back to Little Silver Hotel………

Yep.  I said it was going to be a noisy one!  Even some of the guests seemed a little puzzled

Then it was time for speeches and dinner.  Louise and Anthony chose to have their speeches before dinner which always works well – especially as with 4 speeches it helped to keep everyone from running on too much!  I particularly enjoyed the speech by Louise’s maid of honour Mhairi – looks like Louise did too.

After dinner, I didn’t really plan to take more portraits of Louise and Anthony but sometimes you just have to seize the moment and when the mist swirls up and the stree lights turn it this amazing orange colour, well there’s always time for a picture.

As I mentioned earlier, we were blessed with a little of Kent’s “liquid sunshine” on Saturday and with all the melted snow it was a little muddy for taking group pictures outside.  No problem – I had my studio kit in the boot so pulled out a white background and a couple of lights.  It’s always as well to be prepared.

Oh and then there was dancing….

First the first dance…

..then a bit of a Ceilidh….

…then the second dance (actually it was the first dance all over again – it was so good that people wanted more.  This time without trousers.)  BTW I know this is on YouTube somewhere – can anybody provide a link? Video at the bottom – thanks Claire!

Before “just one last shot”.  Nightime is fun time.  And with a lighted gazebo, what else did you expect?

Loads more pictures when Anthony and Louise get back from honeymoon.  In the meantime why not leave your thoughts for them below?  Or use the new “tweet this” button at the top to spread the word via the magic of Twitter.

Ooops.  I nearly forgot.  That frog really did get everywhere……

Update: Thanks to Claire for the YouTube link!

Some people ask me “do you take pictures on holiday?”.  The answer is that I almost always take a camera with me.  Very occasionally I’ll decide I need a complete break from photography but that’s pretty rare   I usually take a camera and indulge myself by taking pictures that are very different from my work.

I’m just back from my “summer” holiday (yeah, told you it’s been busy).  We went to Venice which is a photographer’s dream.  Unfortunately we only had decent light on the first day and some pretty heavy duty flooding other days (yes, I know all the jokes….).  I spent an extremely memorable New Year’s Eve up to my knees in water in St Marks Square.

Anyway, there are a few of my holiday snaps below.  As always, I’ll remind you to hit the “full screen” button at the right of the control panel.  I like to see my pictures LARGE .  And don’t worry of they aren’t to your taste.  Normal service will be resumed soon.

A year ago I wrote that 2008 had been MyWeddingStory’s most successful year ever.  I should have known better.  What I really meant was that 2008 was MyWeddingStory’s best year so far.  Because yes, you guessed it – 2009 exceeded it in pretty much every way possible.

It was certainly wetter than 2008.  In 2008 I only got rained on once at a wedding (though it was pretty spectacular).  This year it was 5 times .  Though none of them were as wet as my New Year.  For reasons that made perfect sense at the time I took my “summer” holidays on Boxing Day (I said it had been busy).  Anyway, as you’ll guess from the snap above we went to Venice.  Which is having more than the usual level of flooding at the moment.  And that’s how I came to see in 2010 up to my knees in water in one of Europe’s most beautiful cities.  Really you had to be there.  Unless of course you have access to YouTube (warning: that link features shouting.  And clowns.).

Just to show you how the year’s gone, I’ll repeat some of the stats from last year – but with new numbers.

In 2009, I had the honour and pleasure of attending and photographing over 2 dozen weddings throughout Kent and the South East of England which was similar to last year. The furthest north this time was Birmingham, the furthest west was somewhere crazy in Devon (really, I’m trying to forget about the drive) and the furthest south and east were, err, both somewhere in Kent.  Good thing I drive a very efficient diesel.

I took more pictures than last year – about 100K vs 75k last year.  The increase is mostly because I’ve expanded my children’s photography business and quite apart from private clients have photographed something like 1,000 “under 4 foots” at nurseries and play groups throughout Kent.

Last year’s promotional news was all about the gallery and the new brochure.  This year it’s about Fabulous Wedding Ideas which has been incredibly popular with over 1,000 copies distributed.

And on to the web stats (which I know a couple of local photographers keep their eye on!)  In 2008, over 16 thousand unique visitors came to the website and read more than 100 thousand pages between them.  That seemed a lot.  2009 it was more like 20 thousand unique visitors reading about 120 thousand pages.  Which seems a modest growth.  But then I also moved the client galleries to a new server.  The client galleries alone added another 70 thousand page views in just 7 months.  Looks like I might need a bigger hosting package next year.

Our most popular story was the wedding of Mel and Laura at Dode which was read by 896 different people which just narrowly beat Katherine and Ben’s wedding story which had 858 people interested in it.

Weddings in magazines are up slightly at 8 in 2009 vs 7 in 2008 (to be fair I’m close to saturation point…..) including one front cover and one whole magazine devoted to one of my weddings.

And as last year I celebrated with a few days off and a few pictures “just for me”.  There’s one at the top of this post and more to follow in the next few days.

Oh and I also bought a new camera.  Well, I always said that 4 DSLRs wasn’t enough…..  It will shock some people who know me that it’s not a Nikon.  But don’t worry – it’s rather nice

So thank you to everyone who made this year amazing.  Can’t wait for the next one.

Wow, after a totally frantic shooting season, it’s time to catch up with some of MyWeddingStory’s press coverage. It’s interesting, I attend a couple of large wedding fairs and do a little print based advertising but lots of clients first come across my photography in the wedding magazines. I’m extremely grateful to my clients for their kind permission to use their pictures and just love it when editors ring me up and say “I’ve seen some pictures on your website that we’d love to feature….”.
Anyway, on to the pictures.
1. Check out the latest Your Kent Wedding.

That’s Andrea Lempriere looking fabulous just before her wedding to Mark at The Knowle in Highham.  Flip open the magazine and you’ll find a rather gorgeous 4 page spread featuring highlights from their “shabby chic” wedding.  Including a close up of the Knowle’s famous cream cakes .

2. A whole wedding magazine

Remember Jo and Dave?  They got married at High Rocks in October.  A stunning album and a few pages in a national magazine are enough for most people.  But not Jo….she got the crew at Daisywheel to make her a whole magazine for all her guests.  Naturally I was happy to help out – this is a great idea if you purchase the digital files of your wedding pictures.  You can either create a magazine yourself or ask a professional firm to do it for you.  It makes a great gift for family and friends.

3. A Kentish Wedding – Winter

Claire and Carl were married in September at Quex House in Birchington.  There’s a rather nice feature on them in the Winter Issue of A Kentish Wedding.  And you can see from the text that they had their priorities right!  Venue and photographer were the first thing they booked .

4. A Kentish Wedding Autumn

Err, yeah.  Slightly embarrassing this one.  The season has been so busy that I haven’t had time to mention this until now.  Lovely spread on Caroline and Rob’s wedding at the London Golf Club.  And yes, that’s the Caz and Rob that were also at Andrea and James’ wedding recently.

5. Honourable mentions.

As I was flicking through some of the magazines to put this piece together a couple of pictures in the editorial sections leaped out at me – “those looks familiar…”.  Often I’ll get requests for specific pictures to illustrate articles and with my clients’ permission I’m always happy to oblige.

But don’t run away with the idea that your private wedding will be palstered all over the magazines if you choose MyWeddingStory!  Editors seem to love my relaxed story telling style but pictures are never released for print without permission.  So if you like then your pictures can be private between us.  But if you’d like to see yourself in print then it looks like the odds are pretty good if you choose MyWeddingStory!

Don’t forget, you can see all these magazines by making an appointment at the Gallery.  Just use the contact form on the right to get the ball rolling.

Random naked people, the A team van and a dress you could set up camp in.  Oh and rain.  Quite a lot of rain actually.  Yep, I had lots of fun yesterday at Bridgwood Manor and Cooling Castle Barn with Andrea and James.

First of all we had flowers.  Or rather not just flowers but FLOWERS from the very talented Caroline Grimble.

Here are a few of the, erm red ones…

Every so often, some quite unusual things happen on wedding days.  Frequently it’s a special request from a client, something that means a lot to them or a particular idea they have have had.  I try not to be phased by them.  So I guess I wasn’t particularly surprised when Andrea said to me “I’d like you to go down to room 236 and take a picture of my friend Vicki in a towel”.  Of course I was happy to comply.  There were only two small problems.

1. Vicki wasn’t in room 236.  She was in 238 and the person in 236 was pretty confused by all of this.
2. She’d actually finished getting ready and already looked fabulous in her dress.  When a random bloke she’s never met before hammered on her door and said “could you take your clothes off so I can take a picture please?”

Still, things have a way of working themselves out….

Meanwhile of course with “the lads” things were a lot calmer.  There was no messing about and absolutely no drinking at all.  Until of course the A-Team van turned up to take James and his seven (yes really) groomsmen to Cooling Castle Barn.

By the way, if you think any of those people look familiar then refresh your memory with Caz and Rob’s wedding at the London Golf Club.  Same best man and ushers, different groom.  Similar weather as it happens…….

Anyway, back in the room.  Thomas and Louise were on hand to heckle help with all the proceedings.

Meanwhile, Tara had turned up from Fripperies to help with the dress.  And it’s probably just as well she did.  There’s no easy way to say this.  It was a big dress.  In fact a b-i-g dress.  The kind you have to get inside to put the finishing touches to.

So we have flowers, random naked person, A-team van, page boy, flower girl and dresser.  I guess now we just need the bride…..

Yeah.  Worth waiting for.  Did you expect anything else?

And just before leaving the Bridgwood Manor there was time for a picture of Andrea with her dad Trevor.  Of course outside the hotel would have been nice.  But we were already enjoying a little “liquid sunshine”.

Speaking of time, here’s a picture I know James will treasure.  It shows

1. The rather lovely watch he had as a wedding gift
2. The date of his wedding just in case he needs a reminder
3. Proof if he ever needs it that Andrea was just the tiniest bit late for the wedding

But then of course you can afford to be fashionably late if you’re going to make an entrance like this.

Did she make an impression?  Did she take James’ breath away?  I think so…..

In fact I’m pretty sure she did.

You’ll have noticed that I’ve mentioned the rain a couple of times.  Yeah it rained.  Quite a lot.  In fact a LOT.

But you know.  When you have a vintage Rolls Royce.  The beautiful Kent country side.  A rather ominous looking sky and loads of baby wipes to clean the dress then you can’t let a little rain put you off.

Meanwhile, back at the barn Matt Parro was busy entertaining the guests with some stunning close up magic.  Which provoked, well, quite a reaction.

And then all too soon, it was time for Andrea and James’ first dance.

(Told you the dress was big….).

But of course, there’s always time for one more picture.  Even in the dark.  And of course the rain.

Loads more pictures when Mr and Mrs Burley return from slightly drier climes.  In the meantime please leave your thoughts and messages for them below.  I’m pretty sure they will have their Blackberries with them.

So…….it’s officially 17 months since we introduced our “ultimate choice build your own have what you want” price list.  And people, it seems, loved it.  The past 17 months have been incredibly busy and loads of clients really liked the idea of our “don’t pay for what you don’t need” price list.

But I talked to about 300 couples at a wedding fair yesterday and I know how long it can take to explain a new and uniquely flexible pricing structure.  So….now we have packages too

Don’t worry – you can still build your own.  It’s even got better because we have introduced the new “spend more save more” scheme.  The more you add into a build your own package, the higher discount you get!  But if you’re in a rush, there are now 2 packages containing our most popular options.  And they have discounts too.

Check it all out on the pricing page.

Best book your date soon….there’s going to be a rush.