Although both living in the East Midlands, Hannah & Stephen held their wedding near Halifax. They had their ceremony at St Matthew’s church in Lightcliffe just up the road from Stephen’s parents house after which they headed over to Stephen’s sister’s house where the reception was held in a marquee in the fabulous garden.Hannah got ready with her 2 bridesmaids in a little cottage in the garden, renovated specifcially for the wedding. Her Ian Stewart dress was stunning & the bridesmaids dresses had a grecian feel to them which were worn with flat gladiator style sandals. Don’t those flowergirls look so cute in their little dresses (I think that they might be from Monsoon as I saw something very similar last time I was in there)
Because it was Easter Saturday, Hannah had lots of ‘easter’ touches in the table decorations – Little bird eggs nesting at the bottom of floral displays & chocolate egg favours.
The top table had completely different decorations than all the other tables, pretty floral displays of roses and tea lights in silver sparkly pots. And don’t you just love the chocolate cupcakes in butterfly cases??The views from the road outside the venue were amazing and Sam managed to get some lovely photos there, as well as using different parts of the large garden. Friends & family had spent many weekends leading up to the wedding helping to get the garden in order.
I asked Sam what she particularly enjoyed about shooting Hannah and Stephen’s wedding…
“I remember that the weather forecast for the day was not good, yet we ended up with a lovely day, perfect for dramatic photos across the valley. I absolutely loved Hannah’s huge bow on the back of her dress. A great detail to photograph, providing interest on the back of her dress and I just love bows!”

If like me you have fallen in love with some of these photos then make sure that you check out her site Sam Clayton Photography and her blog where you can see more piccies and find out more info about hiring her for your wedding.

Don’t you just love the dresses, the big bow on Hannah’s dress, the bridesmaids and the flowergirls all look gorgeous don’t they?

* What do you particularly like about photographing the post wedding shoot, Lovemydress?
A number of things I guess….
It’s great to work again with previous clients one to one and also get to know new couples as well, its a lot of fun doing the session and I get a real buzz out of creating a “wow” image. Sometimes its the location, sometimes I shoot in Infra Red to create a surrealistic look, sometimes it’s the off-camera lighting I use to give the look I want to achieve. Some of these elements are restricted often at Weddings due to the time contsraints or other factors. I like to creating unusual images or building a shoot around a particular theme, I have one coming up in early May where the Bride just loves Bluebells so I am currently researching a few sites to do a bluebells themed shoot.

* Does it tend to be brides that you have photographed at the wedding?
Normally, but it doesn’t have to be!
The whole concept is it’s just another chance to wear the dress again and get some “arty” fashion style shots in the dress again, no time constraints, very relaxed.
It doesn’t have to be that I have previously covered their Weddings, I am happy to shoot any bride as its a totally separate / different experience. It also can be done in any dress, I have previously done “Gothic” shoots and also have an enquiry at the moment for someone who wants to wear their lovely bridesmaid dress again and do a shoot.

* What are the costs for a bride that is wanting to do something like this?
There are a lot of options, at the moment I cover a lot of bases with my packages and will probably whittle these down soon.
They range from £299 – £625. Anyone interested should contact me and I can send them a pdf which includes all the info and costings

* Is all your work in Oxfordshire and surrounding area?
Mostly Oxfordshire, however I am happy to travel and cover down to Cornwall as I have family there. I also have a booking for Kent this year as well

I have also added some Wedding photos for you:
* The surprised cyclist – always makes me smile looking at his reaction
* Through the flowers bridge shot – From a Wedding at the astonishingly beautiful Trebah Gardens in Cornwall. The couple and most of the guests flew in from Sydney Australia to have the Wedding here, you can see more shots here from this beautiful Cornish wedding
* The Bridesmaids shoes – just loved the over sized confetti they used at this Wedding

Well I know Trebah Gardens I used to go on holiday there and its absolutely beautiful – how amazing to get to photograph a wedding there. For more info look at LoveMyDress with Neil Hanson, or have a look at his site, Nordic Pics where there are many more photos from weddings that he has worked on. Oh and I will leave you with my favourite picture that he sent me…

What do we think? Sweet aren’t they? and they start from £20 in the sale – you don’t need to spend exorbitant amounts of cash to make your little bridesmaids feel like princesses! The site is easy to navigate and there are lots of clear photos so that you can see the dresses both on little girls and on the peg. So for those of you wanting to snap up a bargain check out Perfume River. Perfume River has a lovely story too, its named after a very famous river in Vietnam, which runs through the imperial city of Hue – Ha the owner was born there and spent her childhood there, until they fleed the country during the war.

I am always so impressed by people that take the plunge and follow their dream, which is why I like to support one off designers like this on LMW. And I’ll leave you with a little quote from Ha
“The stress of work and raising a young family drove me to strike out on my own. I wanted more control of my time to enjoy the children. Perfume River is the third best thing (1st my girls and 2nd my husband!) that has ever happened to me. Running a business is like an evolving beast, you get to tick lots of boxes as you go along, which I love to do.”

So I thought given that its such a special time for me I would post a couple of piccies from our wedding and give you a little insight into my special day. In fact my wedding was the inspiration for LMW – I work in online media and at the time of my wedding I was amazed at the lack of good websites out there that focused on UK brides. I wanted to create a site that would showcase really fantastic suppliers, one off boutique designers, unique wedding ideas and basically anything that is ‘not on the high street’ (and probably a few things that are!) Also to encourage couples to do it ‘their way’ to involve friends and family and to save money along the way. Anyway enough of my waffle here are some photos from my big day.

Part 1 – this bit – is the preparation for the wedding – me and the bridesmaids getting ready.

I was lucky enough to have my great friend, who was also a bridesmaid, Ems Dennis do my make up – she is a fully trained make up artist and did a fantastic job on me and all the other bridesmaids. It was so nice to have someone that I knew and that really cared about me doing my make up as its a special and intimate time.

Talking of friends, my lovely friend from school Mel Bles (who is now a talented fashion photographer) took all the photos – poor thing rocked up with a bit of a hangover on the morning of the wedding. But we didn’t mind -she is such good fun that we had a real laugh getting ready. Mel knew a lot of the guests too so they all loved seeing a familiar face behind the lens. Mel’s style is reportage and we were fine with that – the church were also quite strict and didn’t want her using flash photography because they thought it would distract the service.

In order to keep costs down my lovely friend Nix Harding (do check her out she is a FAB interior/garden designer) offered to do all the flowers. She kept her promise despite being 8 months pregnant – which was so sweet of her as that really helped us saved quite a lot of money. She did enlist the help of her florist friend Britt, from Flourish and Green.. who was responsible for the button holes (which I have to say were fantastic) and helped out with flowers for the evening venue.

We decided that we (mum, me and bridesmaids) would do our bouquets in the morning – give us something to keep us occupied and also keep costs down. That is mum and dad above – keeping busy with arranging my bouquet!

I went to New Convent Garden flower market a couple of days before the wedding and with the help of Britt and Nix choose these lovely cream roses, red berries and ivy – very simple but made a lovely winter bouquet . Di, my maid of honour bought some white antique lace which we tied around the flowers.

I had 4 friends as bridesmaids – they all wore the same style of dress but chose different colours depending on what they wanted, and then they all wore silver shoes. I also had a little flower girl Minnie, who was absolutely gorgeous, dressed in Monsoon dress, cardigan and tights. She was SO cute. Just look at her here with Di, my maid of honour, who also looks stunning.

The older bridesmaids all wore shrugs from Coast, and they needed them. It was a lovely crisp and sunny day but as you can imagine given it was the 19th Dec it was also very chilly!

All ready to go, hair up and make up done and still doing ‘jobs’ on my computer!! I think that I should have had a wedding planner – I was calling the caterers and letting them know about a couple that couldn’t make it!

Anyway thats enough for today – I have part II in the church coming shortly and then part III will be after the church and the evening venue.

Christina and Jay are equally talented and are a husband and wife team that make up Elemental Photography – this beautiful wedding at Fernie Castle which I featured a while back on LMW is their work. But without further ado lets get on to this one…

The wedding took place at Mayfield Salisbury Parish Church and then on to the reception at The Signet library in the heart of Edinburgh’s old town, where these pictures of the couple were taken.

Jude wore a stunning dress from Caroline Castigliano and the bridesmaids were dressed in midnight blue dresses designed by Stephanie Anne Dressmaking & Design. I love the bridesmaids bouquets with berries and the prickly blue flower which I think is Eryngium (is that right Gemma?)

and an upclose of the bridesmaids’ flowers

This is the inside of The Signet library where the evening reception took place. The venue looks absolutely stunning with the table arrangements by Planet Flowers.

and last but not least a little melange of lovely touches. The brides beautiful bouquet. The guest were all given a bauble as a favour – perfect for a winter wedding. Planet flowers created these cute little table decorations which along with the candles create a cosy festive ambiance.

See what I mean – quite a talented duo…. Check out the Elemental Photography blog for more pictures of the wedding and details of all the suppliers at this wedding. Don’t forget to check out Planet Flowers too for lots of lovely flower inspirations.

This pic was taken by Charlie Pinder, a London based photographer – a lovely mix of colours.