Marcus and I got married in 2017, and with everyone saying to me “I bet your wedding is going to be amazing as you’ve been to so many!” ( I had been shooting weddings for 5 years at the time) I knew I had to get married somewhere I hadn’t photographed a wedding before!

Part of the decision on where to get married was based on my wedding diary – I generally don’t have as many weddings in winter, so in order for us to be able to get married and also take some time off for a honeymoon, a winter wedding was our best option. We then decided we wanted to get married abroad, but at the same time we didn’t want everyone to have to pay for expensive flights. How about Italy? Spain? France? They’re just not as beautiful in February, but if we wanted sun we were looking at flights over 5hrs+ So our wedding was going to be cold. That’s decided. And if we’re going to be cold… lets go somewhere really cold. Iceland? Perfect.

We then started the venue hunt and we really struggled to find a venue that would accommodate all of the people we wanted to invite, if we invited our close family and friends we were looking at a guest list of 70 minimum, so we decided we needed to keep it to just immediate family, and that way we could feed everyone as well as paying for their accommodation for the week.

Iceland was amazing, we had been the February before and it was beautiful sunshine, snow every where and regular northern lights! The wedding week wasn’t quite so perfect, with almost continuous rain and not a snow drop in sight! But we still had an amazing time. We decided to re-wear our wedding gear a couple of days later when we visited the ice bergs for some epic photos – obviously it was still raining, but what annoys me most about the situation is I looked like a drowned rat and Marcus looked perfect as he had so much hair gel in!

Gerard or otherwise known as Gez Gez was born in April 2021, nearing the end of covid lockdowns. He actually arrived on his Easter Sunday due date!

The name Gerard had no meaning to us, it was added to our baby name list because we both like Gerard Butler- not because of the footballer!! We gave Hugo a list of 5 names and he chose Gerard and called my bump Gerard for so long we had to stick with it to avoid confusion.

This kid is so cheeky, the other day he told me he wouldn’t eat his dinner unless I said he was the cutest! He’s Mr popular at nursery and always gets invited to all the parties. Apparently the loudest child at nursery (Clearly they’ve never met Hugo)

Can always be found carrying his elephant “Ebbot”.

Hugo, Hugo, Hugo, where do I even begin.

Hugo arrived dramatically in May 2018, he came out wide awake and he has stayed wide awake pretty much the entire time since. He. does. not. stay. quiet. ever. He is so cheeky and the class clown.

He’s a compulsive liar and makes up the most hilarious lies (not so ideal when its to the teachers!) He’s also an amazing dancer, a total wind up and in his words “a geezer”, he’s either going to grow up to be the Prime Minister or a top gangster, I’m yet to work out which way his manipulation skills will sway.

Bauer was our first baby. We decided we wanted a Hovawart in 2013 and we finally got Bauer in 2014, we got him from a lovely family in Ireland who only had 1 littler and went to meet the parents and choose a pup when they were a few weeks old. We chose the chunkiest chilled pup, and what a great decision. Bauer is so sweet (to people he knows!) and a brilliant guard dog. We once accidentally left the front door of our house open for 4 hrs, we came back to be greeted by Bauer on the drive! Our immediate thought was to check there was no burglar remains in the house, and we soon realised it was us that left the door open rather than a burglar! He’s super loyal and very protective of his family, he’s great with the kids too.

The name Bauer is from Jack Bauer (24) – original ha.

If you’re getting married you have probably already had a think about whether or not you want sparklers. It makes a great photo 99% of the time, so it is a popular choice. If you are getting married in the middle of summer the chances are its not going to be dark enough when I leave to get a moody sparkler shot, but if you have booked a late finish then it’s a great option to consider. Remember it doesn’t need to be completely dark to get a nice sparkler photo, it can still look great just as the sun has set.

In terms of what sparklers to get I always recommend the long sparklers (not just the long handled sparklers), basically we need maximum burn time to enable all of your guests to light them at a similar time.

Grab a load of the long candle lighters to go with them, I usually share them out across the line.

Are you going to get everyone to have a sparkler or just your close family and friends?

What Wedding Confetti looks best in photos?

Choosing what wedding confetti looks best in photos can be a tough decision. There are so many different types of confetti and every venue has different rules regarding it. The first thing to consider when you’re choosing your confetti (if it’s allowed) is does it need to be biodegradable? If it’s going to be thrown outside the chances are it does! The next thing to decide is what type, do you want paper, petals, or dried petals. And then you need to decide on the colour! I bloody love a bit of colourful confetti!

I personally think that larger confetti shows up better in the photos, and I also think that colourful confetti shows better if you’re throwing it in an area with a lot of sky in the background. Here are a couple of different confetti types for you to judge yourself!

I think wedding day timings are sometimes over looked. I’m going to run through the perfect timings for any wedding, and a few common timing mistakes I have seen over the many weddings I have been to:

Let’s start from the end and work backwards, start with your venue close time. Most UK weddings tend to have to finish around midnight due to licensing laws, (if your wedding is finishing at 1 these times will still work for you, but feel free to move the first dance later by 30-45 minutes)

First dance 7/ 7.30pm Have your first dance, followed by your first set of your band/DJ for 45minutes / 1hr, followed by your evening food in the gap between sets (to avoid people leaving the dance floor), have your second set at around 9.30 / 10

Speeches I personally think speeches work best after the food, speeches over run 80% of the time, and if the speeches are before food and they over run it can stress the caterers out having to keep your food warm.

Food I can’t give exact times for food as it all depends what you’re having but you want your food to finish around 1 hour before the dancing begins, that gives you a buffer for speeches and food over running

Drinks reception 1.5 hours worth of drink reception is perfect. If you’re having your ceremony at a different location, add the travel time to this 1.5 hours.

Ceremony Ceremonies last between 15 minutes to 1 hour (churches) If you’ve worked your way back from the list above you have probably come up with your ideal ceremony time.

Example times

TOP TIPS

1. If you want a father daughter dance, do that before the first dance. If you do it after I can almost guarantee it will kill your dance floor for at least 15 minutes. Once the first dance has finished people are ready to join you, if you throw in 3 more minutes of slow dance they usually wander off to the bar
2. The song after the first dance is SO important. You need a decent party tune!
3. Check how long your speeches are before the wedding and add 30% for a realistic time. Tell your speakers to keep it short, honestly no one likes long speeches. I once photographed a wedding with 3 hours of speeches – its safe to say that a lot of the guests were drifting haha.
4. The best time for a ceremony is between 1 and 3. Try not to do an early ceremony because you want to spread the day out, people will get hungry and tired. If you have a ceremony before 1 people are often hungry as they haven’t had lunch
5. The gap between the ceremony and the sit down ideally needs to be less than 1.45hrs, perfect timing is 1 hr 15 – 1hr 30. If its over 2 hours people will get impatient
6. Try and provide some snacks in that gap, whether that’s canapés, ice cream trucks or even crisp walls to keep the guests going
7. Check how warm/cold the wedding is going to be, as being too hot or too cold can effect the day. If it’s a tipi or manor house in spring/ autumn/ winter the chances are it might be cold. Make sure you let guests know so they can bring warm clothes. The same goes for glass buildings in summer, check the venue have enough fans/ heaters