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E very now and again, a wedding comes along that blows me away.
I don’t always see some of them coming, – sometimes it’s the smaller mid-week one’s that had very little fanfare in the build up and other times you just know it’s going to be something ‘a bit special’.

To describe Kimberley & Rashpal’s wedding as ‘a bit special’ is if anything, a bit of understatement.

It wasn’t flashy or particularly showy even, – I’ve been to bigger and they won’t be offended in me saying I’m sure, grander venues (in that the Sikh temple hall is not the last word in luxury, but weddings are about people and not so much places!), but it was one of those days when the planets all aligned and the fat lady sang her Punjabi heart out all day.

All day from 6am.

I’ve never started a wedding in the dark before other than a Winter wedding once with a 5pm ceremony (a bit mad if you ask me…) but on Saturday 24th October, I arrived at Rudding Park for bridal prep at 6am.

D espite being Provence and early Summer, the forecast for this one was not looking good for the evening, – the last thing you need for an outdoor ceremony and dinner on the terrace. By 8pm it predicted thunderstorms, so not looking good…!! But I am getting ahead of myself…

The first (and only) obstacle I faced in regard to this wedding was a French air traffic control strike. In the days leading up to this wedding is was not looking good, but then improved to a prediction of only 5% of Ryanair flights to France being cancelled.

Mine was one of those 5%, so a hastily booked road trip was arranged with a near 2000 mile door to door drive. That in itself had a number of issues, but I will not bore you with them suffice to say I made it to the wedding with time to spare. Just. Thanks French ATC…not!

Kaylie & Tom chose the gorgeous Chateau de Massillan near Orange in Provence for their wedding, a 2 day affair with picnic and BBQ on Day 01 followed by the actual wedding day on the 28th June.

The bride wore Johanna Hehir and the groom a Leonard Jay suit with the fabulous flowers by local florist Blandine.

L ast week was a busy week. The busiest week of the year for weddings with 3, this being the final one.

I shoot more marquee weddings than any other type of wedding or venue so Sophie & Ollie’s West Yorkshire marquee wedding was another typical day in the office for me…and it’s a great office to work in!

Sophie & Ollie’s wedding came about as a result of a wedding I photographed last year for another couple, Louise & Christian with Christian’s parents being Ollie’s god-parents.
I don’t know if that makes Ollie & Christian god-brothers, or something…

So it was another gloriously sunny day in a field on top of a grassy hill in West Yorkshire, unlike our pre-wedding photo-shoot where it did nothing but rain!
The setting was a sweeping expanse of West Yorkshire countryside with the marquee area decorated (and later lit) by dozens of glass lanterns, bales of straw and a err… fibreglass sheep!Later seen sporting an army officers hat…

The marquee itself inside had an alpine theme as the families are all big skiers and Sophie’s parents even have an alpine themed Summer house in their garden.

T wo of the greatest Swinton Park weddings that I have photographed to date have been on Thursdays with this, Nadia & Eric’s wedding day being the second of these.
The sun shone all day which at any wedding you would want but especially at a Summer wedding and it added real vibrancy to this most colourful of weddings.

The wedding itself was Muslim culture (Nadia’s family) meets Chinese culture (Eric’s family) in a quintessential English country house setting so a fabulous mix visually for a wedding photographer.

Nadia wore a gorgeous traditional dress in a colour I hope she won’t mind me calling peach (but that’s about as close a colour as I can ascribe to it) with silver trim and Eric the groom wore traditional outfit in white with red & silver trim.

The stunning bouquets, buttonholes and floral displays were by Stems with hair and makeup by Debs at Love Hair & Beauty plus Zarina.

A Muslim ceremony followed directly after a civil ceremony in the library with a drinks reception in the drawing room and outside after that.

T he temperature gauge on my car was rising by half a degree every 5 minutes on the fairly brief drive to the other side of Thirsk and Baldersby St James for the Papakata marquee wedding of Sophia & Christopher. It topped out at 28 degrees C by lunchtime so probably climbed higher but never actually felt too hot.

The first thing though was cake. Specifically Toy Story chocolate cake. And ginger beer. (“Lashings of ginger beer”!!) It was Xan, the bride’s brother’s birthday the previous day and I was invited to join the family for the end of their lunch. (Top tip, – make your photographer part of your wedding day and you get better wedding pics. Feed them chocolate cake and ginger beer, you get their very best!)

Sophia wore a Charlie Brear wedding dress from The White Closet, Didsbury and was attended by her 2 bridesmaids, Nicola & Imogen in cream with floral headpieces by one of my very favourite florists, Lucy MacNicoll.

The ceremony in St. James’s church was conducted by Suzanne Jukes and followed by a garden party reception and Papakata marquee next door in the Old Parsonage grounds, the home of Sophia’s grandparents and although the temperature was quite hot, there was plenty of shade within the garden and the heat never became overwhelmingly so.

S wiss chocolate. It’s the best in the world. Alida gave me a box of the stuff during bridal prep which I then put in my pocket and forgot about until the mid point of their civil ceremony in the Radcliffe room. As tempting as it was, the registrars might have had something to say…

Alida & Jonathan’s wedding at Rudding Park, Harrogate was an Anglo-German affair with the bride being German and the couple living in Switzerland, but opting to marry in the UK.

Wearing a Lusan Mandongus wedding dress from Domino, their wedding ceremony took place in front of approximately ninety guests in the Radcliffe room and was followed by a drinks reception on the terrace outside.

Flowers were by Rudding Park resident (her ‘office’ is in the back of the chapel!) florist Colette and the guests were entertained during the ceremony and reception by a pianist. The gorgeous cake and cupcakes were the work of Amanda Earl at Homebaked Heaven and the evening music by Audio Events and the couple honeymooned in New Zealand, The Cook Islands and Hong Kong. Lucky them!

S he’s been patiently waiting for 2 weeks now whilst I went to my brother James’s wedding (who also filmed Clemmy & Alex’s wedding) in Scotland followed by a family holiday, but that wait is now over. Drum roll… ta da!

I was especially looking forward to photographing this one it being the latest in a sequence of weddings that began many years ago with the most recent in that chain being Ali & George’s marquee wedding at Jervaulx Abbey in April.

But this was Clem & Alex’s day with a beautiful ceremony at Ripon Cathedral, my second in as many weeks, followed by a reception at the ever fantastic Swinton Park (30-40 weddings covered to date at the venue!) near Masham in North Yorkshire.

It was one of those golden days of early Summer when the sun just shone from start to finish and though it’s the one thing you can plan for, you simply cannot order it.

S o the forecast said to expect a wet day, especially early on, but once again, it didn’t happen that way at all with only one brief (albeit heavy) shower during the meal.

Amy & Adam are both British, but live in Sydney Australia, so organising a wedding from half way round the world was never going to be the easiest thing, but pull it off indeed they did.

Amy wore Maria Chioda, a dress designer from Australia and had her hair done by LA Hair, Yarm and make up by Kate Pymm.

Wedding transport was a pair of cars, a Rolls and an Austin Princess courtesy of GW Holmes, plus a vintage bus for the guests.

Floristry was by Diana Kaye of Yarm and the ceremony was conducted by The Rev. John Chambers at St. Mary The Virgin, Richmond.
(That’s Richmond North Yorkshire, not Richmond Surrey. Or Virginia).

During the drinks reception at Middleton Lodge, Emma White played piano. Amy & Adam’s cake was supplied by The Cake Room Ltd and two bands provided entertainment late into the night, – Beat Street International in the marquee until midnight and then Frankly Jazz in the Cellar Bar until the early hours of the morning.