A couple of months back, I travelled out to Germany with the lovely Alana, from Baby Surrey & Baby London Magazine, to visit Kiddy, the Germany-based child car seat manufacturer. We went to meet the husband and wife team behind the company and document who they were and how they work, for the purposes of an article in the latest issues of Baby Surrey, Baby London and Baby Hampshire magazines.

We spent two hot, hot, hot days in Hof, north of Nürnberg, and right next to the Western most point of the Czech Republic. We were treated to great German hospitality by Bettina and Jan-Stefan of Kiddy, and two days of the ins and outs of Kiddy car seats – what Alana and I don’t know about friction coefficients is not worth knowing!! During those two days we took lots of photographs and tried to get a real idea of the family unit behind Kiddy. You can read all about it in the latest magazines, but for now, here are my favourite images from the trip:

Every now and then another little thing happens at a wedding which makes me think, “I wish I had thought to tell them about that before today!” Obviously, nobody can predict all the little things that are going to happen, but one can learn (or teach) from past experiences and pass the suggestions on!

So, here we go – my first five tips to help your wedding photography flow a little more smoothly on the day.

Is it allowed ?
To ensure that there are no last minute surprises at the ceremony venue, it makes sense to speak to the vicar, priest, registrar etc ahead of time and check out their “rules” on photography during the ceremony. Unfortunately, it can often be the case that, based on a bad past experience, the officiant may not be too supportive of photographers … it is something that comes up time and time again, and the wonderfulness of a wedding can sadly be overlooked by the concern that wedding proceedings may be disrupted by a disrespectful photographer. It’s best to have the conversation as early as possible and reassure the residing officiant that you have booked a respectful and professional photographer (hopefully you have!!) and that it is your wish for the ceremony to be photographed freely. (I have been told that church donations can sway even the most stubborn vicar, but you never heard it from me!)

The Recessional
When you are both walking back down the aisle, remember that it’s not a race! Take your time and take in all the friendly faces, tears and all. If you feel like stopping and hugging and kissing a few friends and family members, that’s fine by me, as it all makes for great photography!

Confetti
If you have dreamy visions of the two of you coming out of your venue to a beautiful storm of confetti, be aware that this can often fall flat if your guests do not have more than a single handful each. If you want a good set of confetti images, then, as with anything, it’s all in the planning! Natural and bio-degradable petals are a good choice (Shropshire Petals, as a suggestion) and do not cost a lot at all. Have your ushers / page boys / page girls hand out cones as your guests leave the ceremony venue – oh, and make sure they’re all standing with the wind behind them too!

Keep them lips luscious
Don’t forget to keep a tube of lippy and a powder compact with your chief bridesmaid (or anyone you trust to be close to you for the majority of the day) and give them the responsibility to make sure you are topped up and looking lovely!

Table Decorations
Large table decorations are great and can look wonderful, but, have you ever given consideration to their height ? Not many people think about it, but it can be quite frustrating trying to photograph the speeches, and the resulting reactions, when you cannot see your guests’ faces! It’s not just the floral arrangements i’m talking about, but table name holders too. If you are going for tall table decorations, it might be a good idea to move them off the table during the speeches, to ensure that faces aren’t hidden and your photographer doesn’t miss a key reaction.

That’s it for this time, but over the coming months i’ll be jotting down some more tips for you to ponder over. Let me know if you come up with any and i’ll include them in future posts!

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to Normandy, France with Claire and her family for a photo shoot. Claire may only live 10 minutes up the road from me, here in Surrey, but when you have France at your disposal – why not ?

Claire runs the very successful business Plantpassion, and is one of the most knowledgeable and passionate plant experts I know, and her blog is regularly updated with useful gardening snippets that we should all take note of – makes me wish I had a garden again!

So, for Claire and Ashley, the beach is a very important part of their trips over there, so we got up super early on Sunday morning and headed down, over the dunes, to catch the beach with the tide out. It was incredible to see how many cockle pickers were already up and hunting:

There was much splashing in the surf:

And this reminds me of a James Bond movie!

Tigger is a very important friend

And jumping is a very important game

We headed back down to the beach, amongst the dunes, later in the evening, to try and get some funky shots with the portable lights. This is my favourite shot from the entire weekend – how cool is this dude ?

A huge Thank You to you all for a cracking weekend!

Not long to go now until Rachel & Simon’s wedding, in just 6 weeks! They came to me on referral from a mutual friend, which is always the best ! They will be getting married at Loseley Park in Guildford, just 10 minutes up the road from me – perfect! So, we met up for breakfast on Sunday morning to discuss the wedding plans and then headed on over to Loseley Park for a mooch around and for some photography.

We stumbled upon the most beautiful walled gardens, which will be the scene for their drinks reception on the wedding day – no photographs of that on this occasion, as we’ll leave that special one for the big day itself.

In between dodging the wind, dodging the rain, dodging the goose poo, eating scrumptious Loseley ice-cream and dodging some dodgy shouting woman, we pulled out some lovely shots. Here are my faves:

I met the lovely Natasha and Luke at the National Wedding Show last year and the time has finally come for their wedding in just a few weeks. We met up at The London Eye a couple of weeks back to discuss their plans and to do their pre-wedding shoot. After ice-cream (thanks Luke!) and a good old natter, we spent a bit of time on the photography, just to get them used to the idea.

Looks like they’ll be fine on the day! So, here are a couple of my faves from the session: