Let the sun shine .. a bit longer!

Sunday saw my last Wedding shoot of the year and I must have been a very good boy this Christmas because, after all the rain we've had this month, the God of Wedding Photography smiled down upon me and a glorious winter sun shone down all day long! However - as I always say - no Wedding Day is ever completely perfect, and poor old Claire and Steve's Wedding Car refused to start when they got in it to be taken from the church to their reception, and there was horrendous traffic on every route to the hotel. The couple took it in good humour but, for me at this time of year, every moment they spent going nowhere was another minute's less light so, despite the stunning start to the day, I had to shoot the majority of my pictures indoors. Still, that's what flashguns are for and I've come away with well over 1,100 shots to edit once the Christmas break is over..

And so that's it! My 2015 Wedding year is ended and now I have to wait another .. oooh, three weeks until my booking! Looks like 2016 is going to be a great year for my Wedding Photography! Can't wait ..

No standing around ..

Christmas done, and I hope you all had a cracker! No time to stand around for me today as I'm off to photograph my last Wedding of the year. I'm heading for our local church and the lovely Mere Court Hotel near Knutsford and .. whisper it gently .. the sun is shining as I write this. It looks like Claire and Steve are going to be lucky! Oh please, oh please can I have a nice day for this Wedding!..

Catch ya later..

Bending over backwards ..

September, and I'm already thinking about my Autumn Weddings. Working around the weather, in other words .. and I certainly got a taste of that during Friday's Wedding at Mere Court. It rained all day, basically! Couldn't do anything outside apart from a few brave shots of the bride and groom under one of my brollies. Still, as you can see, we managed to shoot the 'Handstand' shot that I was asked for, so all is good in the wacky world of Weddings!..

It just goes to show how right I am when I tell a bride and groom that the weather won't affect the enjoyment of their Wedding Day. On Friday, a bad crash in the rain caused an hour's delay to the start of the Wedding and, as I say, the weather prevented most of the guests from going outside for photographs, but it didn't spoil the day one jot for Victoria and Michael. It did mean a lot of scurrying about for yours truly, though! In bad weather, at this particular venue, it's usually possible to use their conservatory for group photographs. Not so on Friday! The room was being turned around to host the reception. Plan C then! There's a little room to the side that works well for shots but, once again, I was scuppered at this Wedding as the room was already being used for a small family get-together. I had to rapidly come up with a Plan D! Plan D was to shift a bunch of tables and chairs in the bar to make a little studio between the guests in which I could work. It worked, and we got all the group shots in a few minutes flat! See? It's true! A good Wedding photographer always bends over backwards to get the shots ..  

Cor, blimey ..

Yesterday's Wedding had it all .. thunder, lightning, torrential rain, a crash that blocked the motorway to the reception .. and a flood at the venue once we got there! Oh, and a deliriously happy couple who didn't give a hoot about what was going on 'cos it was their Wedding Day! Big cheers to Ian and Dee, who smiled all day and even treated me to a pint of the black stuff once we'd got our shots done! Don't be fooled by that spot of blue sky in the photo, by the way. That was just a scudding gap in the clouds before the monsoon set in again! Looks like more of the same, too, as I head off to Willington Hall this morning for Julie and Sean's Big Day. Fear not! I shall rise to the challenge! Mine's a Guinness..

You snooze, you lose..

I managed to go to a gig on Friday night .. and miss the band I'd gone to see! Farewell, Meat Puppets, I hear you were great! Alright, I'm being a bit hard on myself here because, knowing that the band we wanted to see were the support, me and my pals did get to the gig by eight thirty pm but, by then, the lads'd already played and packed up and we were left to put ourselves through the boredom of three Mudhoney tracks before we called it a day ourselves and went off to drown our sorrows! Aaaagh!!! How annoying! How frustrating! How bloody crazy that a gig at what we still think of as Manchester Uni Students' Union had already put the support band on .. by 8.30!!! I mean, it was Friday night for flip's sake! You'd think the dear students were up for partying 'til at least 11 o'clock! Cripes, I went to see Gary Glitter once (Shhh...!) and even he didn't come on 'til half one in the morning! Sob sob, boo hoo .. I've sulked all weekend and had the mickey taken out of me something rotten! But, as all us good old punks say .. "I don't care!" .... (But I do, and isn't it bonkers that ... oh, shut up Martin!...)

Ahem... and in other news this Monday .. another two Wedding weekend coming up this weekend, and I'm back at two of my favourite venues once again. I'll be at Mere Court on Friday, and good old Willington Hall on Saturday. Now if there's one thing I do freak out about it's being late for a Wedding so, if you'll excuse me .. I'm off to Mere Court. I should definitely be there by Friday...