Chevin Country Park, Otley

I was expecting Lauren and Philip's wedding to be a little bit different and they didn't disappoint me! After a church ceremony in Calverley, midway between Leeds and Bradford, we set off for Otley Chevin, where Lauren swopped her heels for some walking shoes and literally left me standing as they marched off towards the Surprise View. This is a favourite part of the world for the two of them as they do a lot of walking here and so they wanted some special photos taking in this spot. They both had to leap over quite a large gap to be able to stand on one particular rock (their idea, not mine), but it did produce some rather spectacular photographs which we managed to light with some off-camera flash. We then moved onto the Chevin Country Park Hotel for some more traditional photographs before finishing off after the speeches with some video light shots. A pretty good day all in all with a pretty good selection of photographs for Lauren and Philip to choose from.

A Chinese Wedding - Waterton Park & Maxi's Restaurant

Ka Wai and William actually got married in the sun in Cyprus, but they had also arranged a traditional Chinese wedding here, complete with tea ceremonies and a Chinese banquet with its many courses. This was almost like a reunion for us, as we have previously filmed several weddings for the family and so we know many of them well, but on this occasion we had been booked to undertake the photography. The day started at Waterton Park Hotel near Wakefield, where Ka Wai and her family had spent the night. This was the venue for the first tea ceremony and some photographs before we moved onto the home of William's family in Wakefield for the second tea ceremony. This was followed by a short journey up the M1 to Maxi's Restaurant in Leeds, where we were joined by their many guests - and a dragon - for the banquet. The bride always changes her dress during the meal, which gave us the opportunity to pop outside for some final photos of the happy couple.

Waterton Park Wedding Fayre

We shall be at the Waterton Park Hotel Wedding Fayre at Walton near Wakefield this Sunday if anybody would like to call in and see us and have a chat. We look forward to seeing you there.

Hazlewood Castle Training Day

I love this time of the year when things are a little bit quieter. It gives me chance to choose and buy new equipment for the coming wedding season and to make the most of free days to learn more about the wonderful world of wedding photography from some of the best photographers in the country. To-day I didn't have to travel far to do this, as Chris Chambers was running a course at Hazlewood Castle near Tadcaster. Here is a selection of photographs from the day.

Oulton Hall Wedding

It's really nice when you do the wedding of someone and they are so pleased with your work that the brother books you for his wedding. Such was the case with Laura and Chris. We had filmed Chris's sister's wedding at Oulton Hall and now it was Chris's turn to get married. They must have been very happy with Oulton as they chose to get married there as well. The only change that Chris made was not to have his sister's photographer - instead they chose us, which was really nice, so we found ourselves doing both their photos and their video. After getting some shots of the girls getting ready we moved onto Oulton Church, where the ceremony was to take place. Oulton is a beautiful church and I love it. It's so light inside! We have filmed there many times and it's quite possible to walk up to to Oulton Hall from there. This was a really relaxed wedding and a great day -it does help though when you already know half of the people there. I love weddings like that!