First up is Yum Yum Candy Cart.  It’s always lovely to have something different at your wedding. Yum Yum Candy Cart is a fun and quirky way to offer sweets to your guests. Everyone loves sweets so having a fabulous looking sweetie cart stocked with yummy sweets could be the perfect accompaniment to your wedding day!

The timescales on the day were tight, so I had to move pretty quickly to make sure I didn’t miss any of the key moments. After the ceremony all the guests were invited to Rachel’s parent’s house for reception drinks.  The backdrop for the formals was their garden which looked out onto stunning Yorkshire rolling hills.  Once the formals were done I shot off with the bride and groom to Norland Moor to get a few special pictures before heading to the Cedar Court Hotel, Huddersfield for the wedding breakfast.

I knew that Rachel and David were into ballroom dancing so I was looking forward to their first dance.  It makes a lovely change to see a proper first dance instead of the usual ten second shuffle, and boy can this couple dance!  After that everyone jumped on the dance floor and showed off their moves.  I’ll let the pictures do the talking…!

It was my first time shooting a wedding at Swinton Park and I must say it’s now my new favourite venue. Not only is it a beautiful, luxury castle set in amazing grounds making it the perfect backdrop to a wedding, but but all the staff did a fabulous job to accommodate the guests’ needs. Their attention to detail was second to none and it was so nice as a wedding photographer to have a venue say “yes” to my requests.  A special thank you goes out to the toastmaster Eric Porter who was brilliant at keeping me informed every step of the way.

The day was wonderful, Kat looked amazing, the ceremony was lovely with plenty of tears.  Everyone enjoyed their afternoon tea, all the guests were fab, the ceilidh was hilarious and people got involved in my fun booth. I really do love my job, particularly on days like this!

The ultimate aim of the shoot was to get an image which could be blown up and framed as a surprise gift for Steve’s wife, so a fair amount of stealth planning took place amongst the McDermott household to keep it under wraps.  Steve’s garden was the chosen location and we had a great variety of backdrops to play with.  My brief was to capture their personalities in an unposed group photograph, which is where my reportage style came into play. The end results were some lovely informal pictures of the three siblings having fun.

After the drive, we headed to the beach to get an ice-cream (well, they did… I had my working goggles on). We had loads of fun running around on the beach, splashing in the sea (freezing cold!), piggy back rides and some cheesy America’s next top model “posing”.

John had proposed to Faye in a cove called “Boggle Hole” so it was important to take some shots there too.

They’re not getting married till later in the year but wanted the photos for their invitations which is a brilliant idea. As a bonus on the way home we went for a chippy tea, doesn’t get much better than that!

When we returned to the cars we decided that as the light had gone we would have a quick drive over to Ilkley to the Cow and Calf rocks to create a little bit of Wow!

They are getting married next month at the Cedar Court Hotel, Ainley Top which will be a good day.