I recently covered Becky and Edward’s wedding at All Saints Church, Sandon in Staffordshire followed by a reception at Chillington Hall.

The wedding got off to a great start when I started the day with Becky at the Moat house, Acton Trussell. The hotel is a great wedding venue in its own right but it is also very often the accommodation of choice for guests attending events at Chillington Hall. When I arrived it was clear to see that the bride was very excited about her wedding day, in fact the whole wedding party (a lot of which popped in during the preparations) were a bundle of excitement and nerves! The preparations went swimmingly and we were soon on our way to the church.

All Saints Church is a truly beautiful and wonderfully atmospheric place but it’s also one of the darkest churches I have worked in for a long time meaning Bryn and I had to work very hard to catch the natural light, which although challenging is always a pleasure to work with as I find it can enhance emotional scenes so well.

Dodging rain showers we all arrived safely at Chillington Hall but soon after our arrival the Heavens opened causing all of the guests and the group photos to remain inside. We did manage to find a long enough dry spell to venture down to the lake though. For anyone who knows Chillington but has not been down to the lake you have missed a treat. It does take a while to get there but once you arrive you are treated to some great views and buildings with plenty of photograph opportunities.

We stayed with Becky and Edward right into the evening and we were treated to a first dance lit by sparklers!

I hope you enjoy the selection of images below which were some of my favourites from the day.

Two weeks ago I got to cover a wedding at a great local venue, Himley Hall. It’s a great, imposing venue surrounded by park land to the west of Dudley. I have covered weddings there before but not since it has been renovated. If you’re considering a wedding venue in this area it’s well worth a look.

I was the photographer for Rachel and Andrew; I had shot the wedding of Rachel’s best friend last year (images here) and after they saw our slideshow that we display on a large projector in the evening, Rachel cancelled the photographer she had already booked in favour of us, a compliment indeed! Its always great working from a referral as it reflects not only that my past clients were more than happy with their photographs but also how we conduct ourselves on the day. This was actually the third wedding from this friend group and we have another already booked for next year!

As with a lot of weddings in the UK, the threat of rain was never far away but the few spots that we did have timed themselves very nicely and never caused a problem; in fact they seemed to make the entire group enjoy the sunny spells even more. I would also like to mention the church where the ceremony was conducted, I had never been inside the church at Burntwood before but both the layout, lighting and indeed the Vicar were a joy to work with. It seems almost unusual these days to be given a free rein as far as photographs inside the church are concerned but its always a nice surprise. I can see why some Vicars are restrictive with photographs as the few who take advantage spoil it for the rest of us but I don’t think it would hurt to at least ask us what we would like to do and then make a judgment from there. Even with free rein we want to be as unnoticed as possible so we always use long lenses and never use flash, this way we do not draw attention to ourselves and let the ceremony progress naturally.

The images I have chosen for the blog are more stylised than normal, mainly due the the standout image taken at dusk outside of Himley Hall with our remote flash system. This is a technique we have been working on a lot this year and I think the results speak for themselves.

Two weeks ago I covered Bal & Derricks wedding just down the road from me in Codsall. It is always nice to have such a local wedding as very often I am booked by couples several hours drive from my home in Wolverhampton.

We were graced with fantastic weather for the wedding, brilliant sunshine, high temperatures and a nice summers breeze, anyone would have thought I was shooting a wedding in the Med! From beginning to end both Bal and Derrick were great to work with they allowed us a lot of freedom on the day to shoot what we saw instead of covering a long list of images. I don’t mind having ‘must get shots’ from Brides and Grooms but I think the freedom given to us at this wedding will really show in the album.

The reception was held just down the road from Codsall church at Chillington hall, one of the venues that recommend me as their photographer. I have said it before but I really do enjoying working closely with the guys at Chillington Hall its such a friendly atmosphere, I think due in part to it still being a family home.

Images have been processed in Aperture 3 with some extra touches in Photoshop.

A couple of weeks ago I got to cover another wedding up in Leeds. This time we were at the fabulous Oulton Hall in Rothwell. The hall is set in a pristine golf complex and has some of the most amazing rooms that I have photographed in for a long time.

We covered both Bride and Grooms preparations and it would appear that Jess and Durham are perfectly matched as they were both laughing and joking from the moment we got there until we left at midnight. Its wonderful to see a couple so in love and it always seems to be infectious  as the dance floor was covered with happy couples, both young and old.

I have featured more portraits than usual, I always like to include a few from the day but the ones Bryn and Myself captured in the evening were too good not to show here.

I hope you enjoy them.

Once again these images were processed in Apple’s Aperture 3 and I am continually impressed with the colours coming out of this software.

I got the chance to travel up to Newark 2 weeks ago to cover Maureen & Bill’s wedding at Kelham Hall. I had previously shot Maureen’s brothers wedding in Lichfield.

The wedding was the Saturday before the bank holiday so being unsure how much traffic we would encounter Bryn & myself set off with at 7am to ensure we got there on time. As it turned out there was very little traffic so we ended up having a picnic breakfast out in the country, not a bad start to the day is it?

The day went swimmingly and both Maureen and Bill were on top of the world. It’s been a while since I was at a wedding with such a quantity of laughing and joking, the whole group were great fun. As for Kelham hall itself, its a great venue with stacks of great locations for photographs, I think I could shoot ten weddings there and not have to duplicate any locations.

We stayed well into the night getting some great dancing images, catching up with Paul & Miriam (Maureen’s brother and wife) and giving the guests chance to watch the slideshow.

I have included an extended sample of the pictures below, this is the first full wedding I have processed with Apple’s “Aperture 3″ software, the picture quality is second to none and I am really happy with the colour rendition too. I hope you enjoy the images.

I covered Anna and Stephen’s wedding two weeks ago at one of my regular venues, Chillington Hall in Brewood, Staffordshire. I have more information on Chillington here.

I met Anna and Stephen at one of the venue’s ‘Open days’ and we got on straight away so I was very happy when they booked me for their wedding. Anna got ready in one of the bedrooms of the historic house whereas Stephen got to fly-in via helicopter, he certainly made quite an entrance.

The ceremony was beautiful with the light streaming in from the side windows, I really do enjoy shooting at Chillington as there are so many locations to take wonderful photographs. I was only with Anna and Stephen for a few hours so we had more of a focus on group shots and portraits. We got some fantastic shots on the great staircase.

Both Anna and Stephen were great on the day, both were bubbly and determined to enjoy the day, we left them as they sat down for their wedding breakfast and I’m sure they partied long into the night!

Here are some of my favourite shots from the day.

I had the pleasure of photographing Jackie and Paul’s wedding a couple of weeks ago in Birmingham. The ceremony was held at Birmingham register office and the reception at Jury’s inn on Broad Street.

I met up with Paul and Jackie just before they left for the register office, they were both in great spirits and remained that way all day, even through the rain that came down, fortunately it eased off for the walk down to the ceremony, the group shots and the walk back.

One thing that really stood out were the speeches, Paul and Jackie invited guests to come up and say a few words and it is rare I hear so many heart felt words, everyone that stood up delivered a great speech which are a lot harder than they look!

I hope you enjoy the photographs.

I have just been informed the post that contained my review of 2009 has disappeared from my site. It was posted during the server change which is maybe where my post has got too!

Anyway, here is the reposted review of 2009 in movie form

—————–

This is a short video of some of my favourite shots of the year.

This list is by no means exhaustive, I had to keep editing the list down so I could bring the video in under six minutes. I think it is a true reflection of my work this year though and I’m very proud of it.

Last week I spent the afternoon shooting Lizzie & Paul’s wedding in Warwick. I started off covering Lizzie’s preparations at the Warwick Arms then moved down the road to the Lord Leycester Hospital, Its a fantastic old building dating back to the 15th Century.

We had hoped to spend a few hours in Warwick getting some great portraits of the newly married couple but unfortunately the great British weather didn’t oblige us although it stayed dry enough for us to get some shots down by the river at the foot of the castle.

For the reception we moved to a small central restaurant called 7 Square. The restaurant was beautifully decorated and a perfect size for the wedding. I often comment how much I enjoy winter weddings because of the soft, low light. Well this wedding was no  different but it was really pushing the limits of what was possible without using flash. Throughout the whole day, apart from the portraits in front of the castle I was running at 3200ISO to avoid using flash but I think the extra effort was well worth it as the low natural light gives a 3D effect to the images.

I hope you enjoy the images.

Martyn