Faye & Alec – what a gorgeous couple! I first met them at the Styal Lodge open evening along with Faye’s lovely Mum, Jane, and got on like a house on fire straight away! Their day was just beautiful – the weather behaved itself when we really needed it to (and even when it didn’t it gave us a great opportunity to shoot some really cool stuff like above!) Faye looked stunning in her dress from LOVE Bridal Boutique and I loved every single second of their wonderful day Here’s their story…
I’m on a blogging mission! I’ve got soooooo many gorgeous weddings from the past year to share with you and I’m making damn sure they all get on the blog asap!!! So we’re starting with Anitha & Nick’s Styal Lodge Wedding Photographs – I LOVED this day! It was exciting, vibrant, colourful and one hell of a party! And I got to work with my lovely friends Rebecca Reville Videography and Pink Pepper Caterers
Here’s the story of Anitha & Nick’s amazing wedding day at Styal Lodge…
This was an ace wedding from start to finish. Styal Lodge Wedding Photographs are always special. It’s amazing how sometimes even from week to week it can look so different depending on the weather, what’s sprung up in the garden, whether people are having their drinks reception inside the amazing wooden lodge or basking on the terrace – it’s just such a stunning venue. I was also excited to be working with my great friend and recently crowned “Best Wedding Entertainer in the UK” in The Wedding Industry Awards, Howard Wing. I was also working with another great friend and also award winning – Andy Murphy, “Best Wedding DJ in the North West” in the same awards!
Ahhhh, Clare & James – what a wonderful, adorable, gorgeous couple they are They were married at St Peter’s Church in Hale and had their reception at one of my very favourite wedding venues – the stunning Styal Lodge in Cheshire (thank you as always to Poppy, Martin and all the team for looking after me!)
Our lovely friends at Styal Lodge (one of our absolute favourite venues!) literally threw their doors open for us and let us have the run of their amazing venue – thank you so much again to the wonderful Higham Family for being so supportive and helpful (and offering some seriously great advice in the run up to opening) with the launch of our new venture
Another thank you to our wonderful friends Sonara Parker MUA, Amy Darrington Hairdresser and Jane and Jason fromFlower Design for supplying us with such beautiful bouquets to use on the shoot
Here’s some of my favourite images from the day….:)
The doors of LOVE Bridal have been well and truly open for a few months now and dresses have been FLYING out! What a start it’s been, thank you so much to all our wonderful friends in the industry for their help, support and advice and here’s to a great year!
If you’re on the hunt for an amazing dress, give Emma a shout at the boutique to make an appointment – just click the link to take you straight to the website – LOVE Bridal Boutique
Currently stocking Terry Fox, The Heritage Collection By Balbier/Wyatt, Intuzuri, Mia Mia by Alan Hannah and Raimon Bundo, we’ll also be announcing a brand new designer exclusively stocked at LOVE Bridal in the next couple of weeks…!!!
What a gorgeous day for a wedding! I’ve held back Zoe & Mark’s amazing wedding photographs at Styal Lodge as they were featured on the awesome English Wedding Blog, so I thought I’d wait a little bit before I showed you my take on their day – and here it is! My favourite images from a truly brilliant wedding….
For the past couple of years I’ve done a round up of my favourite photographs from the previous 12 months, from weddings, pre-wedding shoots, other wedding related styled shoots and personal stuff.
I seem to have shot more than ever this year and with so many amazing things happening this year (Opening Love Bridal Boutique with Emma, winning North West Wedding Photographer of the year in The Wedding Industry Awards, working closer than ever with some of the UK’s top venues and wedding suppliers) I’ve decided to dedicate this blog purely to weddings. I didn’t want to water down the amazing wedding experiences I’ve had this year and so I’ll be adding 2 or 3 more ‘A year in…’ blog posts over the coming weeks…so watch this space…!!!
So, I’m sticking rigidly to the formula I’ve always used for these ‘Best of’ blog posts – only ONE image from each wedding I’ve shot in 2012 is allowed.
Which is hard.
Really hard.
I’m lucky enough to work consistently with brides and grooms who are 100% excited about their day. Not just about the photography, but about their venue, their entertainment, their videographer, their ceremony, their florist.
Which makes my life really easy.
I don’t have to convince people that certain things are a good idea – they’ve got their own ideas that they involve me in and we work on ideas and are creative together.
This is an awesome way of working And this means that I shoot A LOT of images at every single wedding that I absolutely love. And to cut them down to my very favourite, single image from each wedding is something that breaks my heart! But I do it because it’s fun too!
Some of the choices are really hard but I make these decisions with my head AND my heart.
What I love about them from a technical point of view in some cases, but more often than not, what I love about the moment, the look, the tears, the laughter, the feel of the photograph.
And there they are below.
Some of them were easy, some of them were really hard, for very many different reasons.
Some of them don’t feature the groom, some of them don’t feature the bride – some of them feature neither! (And they’re the REALLY difficult ones to actually finally make a decision on – but it’s just because something grabbed me that represents the overall day)
So one image, from every wedding this year, with a single line to describe why I love that image (and they’re in no particular order!)
Enjoy
Katie & Mark’s wedding at Manchester Town Hall and The Lowry Hotel. Seriously? You need me to tell you why I love this photograph?!?!? How much fun?!?!?
Katie & Kelvin’s wedding at Mitton Hall. I love this because Katie and her bridesmaids had brought umbrellas and wellies in case of rain – and then insisted on wearing them even though the weather was gorgeous!
Katie & Andrew’s wedding at Eaves Hall on New Year’s Eve. I’d promised them something spectacular ahead of the day…and didn’t quite know what that was going to be until it went dark…
Gemma & Matt’s Bartle Hall Hotel wedding. Because sometimes you’ve just got to embrace our wonderful British weather…
Carly & Ian’s wedding at Sandhole Oak Barn. Because we got weather like this in FEBRUARY!!!
Becky & Dave’s wedding at The Great Hall at Mains. Because my great friend and TOP entertainer, Howard Wing, really got the party started!!!
Hayley & Matt’s wedding at The Midland at Morecambe. Because the ushers trying to tie their bow ties was one of the funniest 20mins of my life! Great fun!
Katie & Andrew’s wedding in Wigan and at Great John Street Hotel. Because you almost feel like you’re there through their expressions
Katherine & Spencer’s Manchester wedding. Because these two really are as cool as they look
Kavita & John’s Sefton Park Palm House wedding. Because I found out that this is Kavita’s favourite photo too!
Kerry & John’s Davenport Green Hall wedding. I LOVE the excitement and anticipation as Kerry is about to appear…!!!
Kirsty & Dean’s Egerton House Hotel. Because it’s such a beautiful, intimate moment…
Lucy & Chris’s Macclesfield wedding. Because they’re my friends and I loved spending this time with them on their special day
Katie & Paul’s Sandhole Oak Barn wedding. Because they look BANGIN’!!!
Zoe & Mark’s Styal Lodge wedding. Because it just looks perfect.
Suzie & Mark’s Styal Lodge wedding. Because it’s the calm before the storm…. (in a good way of course!!!)
Sarah & Tom’s Belle Epoque wedding. Because it’s Christmas!!!
Sarah & Andy’s Samlesbury Hall wedding. Because I love their reaction to the speeches!
Ruth & Paul’s Manchester wedding. Because it’s so out of place it works!
Rosie & Nick’s Belle Epoque wedding. Another tough one as I’ve left Rosie out (and she’s the most beautiful bride!) – but there’s just something about this photo of Nick and his mates that I love
Becca & Paul’s Peover Golf Club wedding. Because it doesn’t need any explaining…
Seb & Andy’s Styal Lodge wedding. Because I LOVE this much confetti!
Chrissie & Louis’s Belle Epoque wedding. Because this really happened. Seriously.
Gemma & Martin’s Albright Hussey Manor wedding. The moment between Gemma & her Dad, I just love it…
Dolan & Varun’s Woburn Abbey wedding. ‘Cos it’s cool to arrive on a horse!!!
Gemma & Dave’s wedding at The Lowry at Salford Quays. Standard groom/groomsmen ridiculous behaviour!
Hannah & Ian’s Heaton House Farm wedding. Because I love that little tear in Hannah’s eye…
Hazel & Ross’s Ripley Castle wedding. It’s about the venue, the setting and the moment between Hazel & Ross. Gorgeous.
Jules & Rick’s Wilmslow wedding. Just because I love a Stormtrooper that can DJ…
Jess & Matt’s Styal Lodge wedding. It’s all about Jess and her dress…
Kim & Mike’s Stanley House wedding. The chandelier, the kiss, the shoes. Yes.
Laura & James’s Mitton Hall wedding. Because Laura looks so serene and calm. Love this
Lindsay & Chris’s wedding in France. Because this is so uber cool. Oosh.
Caroline & Darren’s wedding at The Belle Epoque. Because it’s like an ethereal, magical forest. Inside.
Selina & Mike’s Heaton House Farm wedding. Because it’s so emotional…
Shahad & Simon’s wedding at The Belle Epoque. Because we sneaked off for five minutes!!!
Rach & Andy’s Bartle Hall wedding. Because they’re so bloody happy!!!
Paula & Ben’s wedding at Manchester Town Hall and Room. The architecture….and the look….
Nicola & Mark’s Mitton Hall wedding. Because it rained non stop ALL day. But everyone still had the best day ever
Lucie & Quinn’s wedding at Meol’s Hall, Southport. Have you ever seen anyone so excited to do their first dance?!?!?
Marcelle & Chris’s Davenport Green Hall wedding. Because the speeches were ace! (And Marcelle was the first Love Bridal Boutique bride!)
Sarah & Nick’s wedding in Santorini. Because it was in Santorini of course! (And it was an AMAZING wedding!)
Kim & Matt’s wedding at Styal Lodge. Because they just wanted to have fun
Kate & Ben’s West Didsbury wedding. Because we ignored the ‘no walking on the bowling green in high heels’ sign!!!
Helen & Graeme’s wedding at The Alderley Edge Hotel. Because these were proper belly laughs!
Ally & Matt’s Sandhole Oak Barn wedding. Look at that sky!!!
Laura & Mike’s Nunsmere Hall wedding. Because Laura looks proper Hollywood glamour…
And last but by no means least, Bex and Matt’s wedding in Lytham St Annes. Because I love a full dance floor. Especially one that contains no fewer than three of my brides and grooms
So a very brief thank you to all my brides and grooms for being nothing else but awesome! And thank you for continually giving me the opportunity to have such an amazing day ‘at the office’ every time I shoot a wedding
…Jonny Draper Photography!!! How awesome is that?!?!
A massive thank you to all my amazing brides and grooms who voted for me to be shortlisted initially and a huge thank you to the judges at The Wedding Industry Awards for recognising what I do
It is a huge honour to have won – I was standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the best wedding photographers not only in the North West, but in my opinion, the UK, and to be judged as being the best is something that I can’t quite get my head around…
This blog post contains a single image from each wedding that I shot within the voting period (which was REALLY hard to choose!) as an extra thank you to my amazing brides and grooms for trusting me, for pushing me to raise the bar at every wedding, for not thinking I’m a little bit mental with some of the suggestions I sometimes make and for voting for me in these awards. Thank you so much to each and every one of you
These images are in no particular order – I love them all equally
So here we go:
A big thank you once again to all of my amazing brides and grooms and a special thank you to the following people for all of their help, love, advice, support, constructive criticism, recommendations and mickey taking (not necessarily in that order and all of those things don’t necessarily apply to everyone in the list below
Emma
Chris & Pete Draper
Jo, Paul, Megan & Jake Pike
Kate & Ant Roberts
Clare Draper
Keith & Pauline Latham
Lisa, Simon & Jacob Johnson
All of our respective extended families!
The Higham family at Styal Lodge
Tom Harrington from Silk Wedding Videos
The Heath family at Heaton House Farm
Annette, Rene & Nic from Top Table
Jane & Jason Thompson from Flower Design
Collette Northover from The Belle Epoque
Howard Wing
x
So now on to the national finals in January in London! I’m excited to be heading there with some of my great wedding industry friends who won their own respective categories, most notably my great friend and TOP entertainer, Howard Wing, to see how we get on against the best in the country…we can dream can’t we…???
Kim & Matt’s wedding was a corker – a real fusion between two families and cultures, an awesome venue, a beautiful day – it was very special
I LOVE photographing weddings at Styal Lodge in Cheshire – it’s such a beautiful venue, run by fabulous people who love what they do. It’s always great fun working there!
So I started off in the morning meeting Kim & the girls at Styal Lodge where they were getting ready in the beautiful bridal sitting room…
This was a gorgeous wedding at one of my absolute favourite Cheshire venues! I love photographing weddings at Styal Lodge – the venue itself, the team that work the weddings, the relaxed feel that you get as soon as you walk through the door – it’s an amazing place to get married! I was also very excited about working with some of my great wedding friends including the BEST wedding band out there, The Coolers, top wedding DJ, Andy Murphy and the amazing caterers, Barretts. I also had a soft spot for Jess’s gorgeous Amanda Wyatt dress too…!!!
Jess and Matt were having their full day at Styal Lodge, including Jess using the lodge’s stunning bridal sitting room to get ready in, so I arrived in the morning to see what was going on…
Here’s their story…
