Nina & Zakk: A Manchester City Centre Engagement Shoot
Aaaand we're back! HAPPY 2017!!!!!! A huge congratulations to all of you lucky ducks who got engaged over the festive period (get in touch!) and to my beautiful 2017 couples: YOU'RE GETTING MARRIED THIS YEAR!! Yes, I know I'm a bit late to the January blogging game but I've been doing that frantic post-Christmas thing we're all guilty of - meal planning/ignoring, trying to set up healthy living plans for the year/ignoring them, clearing out the Christmas clutter and finding homes for all the new clutter, & getting everything in place for all of my fabulous 2017 weddings. One of the biggest prep jobs is scheduling 2017 pre-wedding shoots for all of you lovely humans getting married this year!
Nina and Zakk are one such couple and I was super stoked when these Sweden-based lovebirds told be that they'd be back in the UK for Christmas and we'd get a chance for their shoot ahead of their July 1st wedding. If you've been keeping up with me over the quiet period, you'll have seen a few of the sneak peeks I posted from their Manchester city centre pre-wedding shoot...these two are just amazing. Nina first got in touch with me off the referral from another photographer who wasn't free on their date (thanks again Jack!) - side note: if ever your dream photographer is already booked on your date, ask for a few other names they'd recommend! You might find someone even more perfect for you! But back to Nina!
So Nina got in touch and told me a bit about the big day: a big family-filled wedding celebration in a field and a full blown bash in the evening. They wanted photographs that captured the prep, the fun and celebrated them and their two gorgeous kiddos. When we had our Skype meeting, it cemented the feeling that this wedding was right up my street! Nina and Zakk are creative and fun and so so cool (seriously it's almost initmidating) and I couldn't wait to meet them in person. Though they live in Stockholm, Zakk is from Lancashire and they were due to come back to the UK for Christmas and we set up a time to meet and have a bit of a festive pre-wedding shoot. I totally didn't think ahead and didn't realise until later that we had booked their shoot at a time of a day where it's already dark! But I had recently attended Jonny Draper's 'Are You Afraid of the Dark' workshop and felt confident that we could really make this work. What I wasn't prepared for was just how well it would work. Seriously. Night shoots may be the way forward! And it certainly helped that I was working with a couple so comfortable in front of the camera and so at ease with each other that the results are simply magic.
I always say that the pre-wedding shoot isn't necessarily about the photos but in this case, I am so so proud of what we achieved together (with the assistance of Nina's makeup artist Mimi Lomax as well who held lights for me - thanks Mimi!). This simple pre-wedding session pushed me out of my comfort zone and challenged me creatively. Thanks again Nina and Zakk for being so awesome on the day (and patient!). Here's what we got up to!