With wedding season beginning to quiet down to a dull roar and the days growing shorter, I’m LOVING taking my time meeting my end-of-year couples and shooting their pre-wedding shoots! Pre-Wedding/Engagement shoots are such a lovely way for us to hang out and get to know each other properly ahead of the main event and I’ve been super lucky this year to have shot in some crazy unique locations.

When couples book me for their full-day wedding, the initial reaction to the words ‘photo shoot’ is a bit fat CRINGE. From all of us. Seriously. Recently we had some family photos taken of us by a friend and she kept laughing at me because ‘why do you keep doing that with your face’. Um..it’s just my face? The natural reaction to having someone sticking a camera in your face is one of several things: purse your lips and give a serious case of ‘selfie face’, cross your eyes, stick out your tongue and look COMPLETELY ridiculous or wish the floor would open up and pretend that none of it’s actually happening. None of the above are ideal when it’s your wedding day though. So we MUST break that ice!

Hannah and Josh are a WONDERFUL and creative couple from Cheshire who own the super-rad printing company And So They Made (personalised notebooks etc of your damn dreams! Swoon!) and on our inital Skype meeting, they made the comment that I’ve grown to expect from my couples ‘we’re not really photo people, we’re super awkward!’. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!!

Because guess what? EVERYONE is awkward and uncomfortable in front of the camera if it’s not something they’re used to…new experiences of ANY KIND can be a bit nerve-wracking and feel super odd. So surely we should try to soothe these jitters ahead of the day that you spend so much money and time and stress on planning. Let’s hang out in a no-pressure environment and go for a walk and talk about your wedding and what makes you nervous AHEAD of the big day so by the time that part comes around, you KNOW I’m not out to make you look cheesy or not like yourselves or LIKE A DICK!

Because I hadn’t yet shot at their AMAZING Cheshire wedding venue, Dorfold Hall, we agreed to meet there on a sunny morning in July. We spent the next hour or so wandering the inside of the house and the immense grounds around the property. In between chatting I shot some images of this ridiculously photogenic longtime couple, tried some silly jumping shots and more romantic close-ups and by the end, it felt like I’d known them for years. Because wedding photography doesn’t need to be a necessary evil of a wedding day…it can be a moment of quiet, of stillness in the chaos of the day. It can even be, dare I say it, FUN. Here is what we got up to on that summer day.

And if you’re still looking for your North West wedding photographer for 2019 (and beyond!), I still have some availability for key dates! Get in touch, let’s hang out and have some fun.