Gorgeous girls, big white dresses, some pretty hot grooms and my lil' cousin's wedding

Hello there!

As many of you have let me know, I've not been keeping up with the blog terribly well lately! All I can say is that I've been so busy with so many fabulous weddings, I've not had time for anything else!

This includes planning my own big day - so to everyone who's told me how organised they are for their wedding next year - "you're making me nervous!" However, Mr Sam and I are now getting into planning mode in earnest. I will bore you... I mean fascinate you with all the news just as soon as I have some!

As for now, well wedding season is coming to an end but what a brilliant season it's been, we really have had some great weddings to photograph. As usual, you'll find lots of photographs of our recent brides and grooms in our "recent work" gallery. You'll see they're a bit of a gorgeous bunch so a "big thank you" and "m'wah" to everyone who invited us to be a part of their day. I hope you all had as much fun as I did!

Now of course all of our brides and grooms are special but there is one very special couple who aren't in the gallery just yet, so I thought I'd share some of their photos with you. Who are these stunning individuals? Why it's my own little cousin Anna-Louise and her new husband, Paddy!












We had such a wonderful weekend with them and it was just the best thing to see them get married. Especially as Paddy has felt like a part of the family for years, so it was nice to see it made official!

Image of the Day - Modern Hindu Wedding Ceremonies

Hello again!

Last year Glen and I were privileged to photograph a number of Hindu weddings in some beautiful locations. The combination of gorgeous couples, stunning mandaps and emotional ceremonies allowed us to create some of our favourite photographs of the year.

Although the most important elements of the wedding are always present, modern Hindu weddings can vary greatly. Some will have most of the important ceremonies on one day, others will last several days. This makes every wedding we cover unique, as different combinations of rituals are observed.

However, all weddings have at their heart the coming together of two people in love and the blessing of that parntership. This photograph was taken at Meghna and Jignesh's wedding at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, Hyde Park in London. I love how their special union as man and wife is shown by the way they are making their offering together, the knot and the chord binding them together and the garlands they have presented to each other.

S
x

Image of the Day - Veils

2008 saw veils make a big comeback, and as a wedding photographer, that made me very happy!

Veils have a beautiful way of catching and diffusing light and really help to make a bridal portrait something special. The photograph on the left is of Emma, whose shoes I showed you yesterday. Simply by using the light from a window and her veil, we've created a really contemporary, fashion-style bridal portrait. So you can see, veils don't have to look cheesy or old fashioned.







Veils can add a touch of magic to wedding photographs. Here are some photographs taken at Sarah and Matt's wedding at Norwood Park in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. Their wedding day was pretty windy, and when the wind caught Sarah's veil it gave the pictures a real sense of movement and something of a fairy-tale quality.
















Many of the veils we saw last year were very long and very impressive, a trend which looks set to stay for 2009. A lot of brides told me they had chosen such a big and beautiful veil because it was the only time they were going to get to wear one, so why not go all out? I couldn't agree more! Here's a photograph that Glen took of Caroline at Stoke Rochford Hall, near Grantham, Lincolnshire. Caroline really knew how to work a veil!

Finally, you can have a bit of fun with a veil. Here are Robert and Zoe at Holme Pierrepont Hall in Nottinghamshire. Another wonderful long, swishy veil!









On Monday - Hindu Wedding Ceremonies.

Have a great, snowy weekend!

Sam
x

Image of the Day - Shoes!

Hello!

I've been trying to think of new ways of using the blog and interesting, weddingy things to tell you about. I thought it might be interesting to show you a different photograph every day, one that shows some aspect of weddings and wedding photography. And here it is "Image of the Day" (insert fanfare here). Let's see how long I can keep this up for....

Being a girl, where else was I going to start but SHOES! Don't worry, I'm not about to launch into a Sex and the City style homily on the virtues of Louboutin and Blahnik. But I have seen some gorgeous wedding shoes I'd like to show you.

2008 introduced me to a new name in wedding shoes - Diane Hassall. Designer, Diane Hassall has created some stunning designs and each pair is handmade to the bride's specifications, making them even more special.

Also, they come in a really nice box! And if you're like me you're a sucker for anything in really nice packaging.


The ones at the top belong to Emma, who married James in December at Belton Woods and the pair on the right are Sarah's, who wore them at her Norwood Park wedding earlier last year (both were Lincolnshire weddings). I can report neither had sore feet by the end of the day, despite the killer heels!


Wedding shoes don't have to be white: here are a couple of gorgeous examples of gold and silver shoes. As you can see, Jimmy Choo is still a firm favourite!















Tomorrow - veils!

Sam
x

PureLight's New Site

Welcome to the all-new website for PureLight. Samantha and I have been working together as professional photographers since last August and we created PureLight in April this year. So what is it all about, why did we do it and what does it mean for our customers, past, present and future.

We were both working as professional wedding photographers and found ourselves located in the same town, Newark in Nottingshamshire – both of us had recently moved to Newark about 2 years ago. Now it starts with LA Fitness – my wife is a keen member and Sam also went along. They got talking, as ladies do, and had a few coffees together. One thing lead to another, and this led to me helping Sam with a few of her bigger weddings towards the end of last year.

You don’t want to hear all the details, so just to say that we both wanted to create a larger and stronger business, and importantly we wanted to be able to offer a two-photographer team for couples, that is two fully professional photographers shooting at the same wedding.

The experience has been great, we have both learnt a huge amount from each other, and the larger size of business means we can do things that would otherwise be difficult – like this new website. We get some economies of scale that means couples get a much better and stronger business.

So what has the experience been like so far: we have had a great response from couples and people in general. We both want to produce the very best images we can for our couples and we both share a strong passion for photographs that really capture something special. We both want couples and their guests to really enjoy their wedding day, so that the photographs are part of the day but we don’t want them to take over. We both want to exceed our clients expectations and a business that people would recommend again and again.

So I hope you like our new website, we have put a lot of thought and effort to create something different and special.