I actually can’t believe a year has passed since Cat & Pete’s wedding at The Inn at Whitewell! It seems like 5 minutes ago!  I only ever put a few shots on from their wedding as a sneak preview and wanted to save the full post for this year – so here goes…!!!

Sadly, I’m an hour and a half past their anniversary as this post is published (I got back from today’s wedding a little later than I expected!) but I’m hoping they’ll forgive me!

I first ‘met’ Cat & Pete via a phonecall that came from Flower Design’s office when they were meeting Jane to talk about their wedding flowers.  Jane decided that they NEEDED to speak to me there and then about their photography, so I answered my phone as Emma and I were going through security at Manchester Airport on our way to Ireland for a couple of days of guinness and fine food!  To cut a long story short, via a lovely face to face meeting at a pub in the countryside, Cat and Pete booked me to shoot their wedding at my absolute favourite venue in the world, The Inn at Whitewell (that’s where Emma and I got married, just in case I’ve not mentioned it before…!!!) – what’s more it was a Christmas wedding (same as Emma and I!) so it was always going to be a wedding very close to my heart.

I’m sure everyone remembers what kind of weather we were having last December and I was very much excited about finally seeing the landscape up there sprinkled in snow for a December wedding (our day was battered by rain!) – I wasn’t disappointed!  I arrived as Jane from Flower Design was putting the finishing touches to the flowers in St Michael’s next door to the Inn, which is where the story of Cat & Pete’s day begins…

I’m not going to interrupt the images with words, as I think they tell a perfect story of the most perfect day – this is actually the most images I’ve ever put in a blog post.  I just couldn’t narrow them down!  Very briefly – Cat (and Pete!) made all the gorgeous details themselves (table plan, evening buffet, signs, crate stencils, etc.!) Pretty much everything else is by Flower Design!

Enjoy!

So there we have it. 1 year down, many, many more to come! I love meeting brides and grooms like Cat & Pete who go on to become friends – they’re enjoying their first anniversary at The Inn at Whitewell as we speak and by pure chance I’m shooting a wedding there tomorrow so I’m really hoping they’re still around when I get there to say a quick hello to. Congratulations Cat & Pete. Every single part of your wedding was amazing and it was truly wonderful to be involved in such a beautifully emotional and intimate wedding.

All the very best for the future, with love and hugs, Jonny.

xxx

I couldn’t resist showing a few more of these images from my cousin Jeff and his gorgeous new wife, Ange’s, post-wedding shoot. Post wedding shoots are always a lot of fun as you have the freedom to do things that most brides and grooms (quite rightly!) wouldn’t be quite up for on their actual big day – what bride wants to go scrambling over fences and trudging through muddy fields on their big day and risk ruining their dress? (especially when it’s a stunning Charlotte Balbier number!) But the day after, it’s not quite as risky…

So here are a few more of my favourites from Jeff & Ange’s gorgeous post-wedding shoot at Villa Farm near York…

Congratulations one more time you two!!!

xxx

My lovely friends from Didsbury Life asked me to grab a few shots of the big switch on a couple of weeks ago – West Didsbury Olympic hopeful, Andrew Steele was drawing the raffle and Simon Rimmer off of ‘Something for the Weekend‘ and more importantly to us West Didsbury types, owner of top vegetarian restaurant, Greens, was pressing the big red button to light the Christmas tree up! Crowds gathered excitedly as the kids from Cavendish School sang carols to get everyone in the Christmas mood and then the countdown began…

Merry Christmas!

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I love a wintery wedding!  All that atmosphere, the low light, the nerves about what the weather will do, whether the bride and groom had been a good boy and girl when we go and see Santa… (?!) – we had all that in bucket loads on Saturday for Lynn and Paul’s big day at Quarry Bank Mill!  It was a beautiful, emotional day and we even got a little dusting of snow on the roof of the mill – beautiful!  Lovely to work with my beautiful wife, Emma Draper Make-Up on the morning of the wedding and to work with my lovely friends from Flower Design who designed the most wonderful flowers for the happy couple.  Here’s a little sneak peek just for Lynn and Paul…

The rings were delivered by a very special guest indeed… Angel from ‘Flying The Knot‘!!!

Fortunately Lynn and Paul had been a very good girl and boy this year so they were allowed to go and see Santa!  (How cool is that!!!)

Flower Design never fail to produce something spectacular – gorgeous, hey?

I love this.  Lynn and Paul were waiting for their guests to come up to the room and I caught them sharing a wonderful, intimate moment – beautiful…

Congratulations Lynn & Paul!!!

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Nice little early Christmas pressie – one of my winter weddings from 2010 has been featured in Pure Weddings Magazine! Lovely stuff! This was the gorgeous New Year’s Eve wedding of Laura & Ewan and was amazing to be a part of it – even more amazing as I got to work with my great friends from Flower Design, Rowley’s Catering and Sonara Parker MUA! Check out the feature below!

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In the past I’ve banged on about weather, about being lucky, about the boot full of brollies I carry at all times, but yesterday was a kind of weather I’ve never even seen before never mind shot in! Sideways torrential rain.

Put yourself in Helen & Graeme’s heads as they drove into Manchester to meet me yesterday afternoon. I’m pretty sure they were cursing me. I’m also pretty sure that they thought it would be a pointless exercise!

Now I’m not one to use my blog as a preaching platform, for me it’s just a nice way of sharing the images I shoot with my brides and grooms. BUT, what I will say (as briefly as possible!) is that yesterday was a perfect example of the kind of thing I talk about when I meet a couple for the first time, before they actually book me.

The fact that you can’t cancel or postpone your wedding day because of the weather. You just have to go with it (and every time I’ve ever shot a wedding in less than perfect weather conditions, it’s actually added to the day. Friends and family slip into that British ‘Second World War mentality’ and all pull together and actually have great fun dashing from cars to churches, sprinting across carparks to venues – it all adds to the story of the day!

Anyway, with all that in mind I never cancel a pre-wedding shoot. It’s slightly masochistic, but I insist to my clients that it’s the perfect opportunity to prove to them that the weather doesn’t matter, that they will still get stunning images on their day no matter what falls out of the sky!

Thank you Castlefield for having so many awesome bridges and places we could shelter from the wind and rain and thank you to Dukes92 for saying yes when I cheekily asked if we could shoot a couple of images while we had a drink at the end of the shoot! If you don’t ask you don’t get

So with the help of several umbrellas to get us between locations and a bit of funky lighting kit, we managed to beat (’survive’ is probably the best word to use!) the weather and get some awesome images of Helen and Graeme.

Thanks for your hard work guys and thanks for trusting me when I said we’d still get some great shots!

Here’s a few of my faves…

Once again, brilliant work Helen and Graeme!  Can’t wait for your big day at The Alderley Edge Hotel now!

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