Amy & Bernard's Wedding

Oooh, I haven't blogged in a while - thats because March is a very busy month for me workwise and homewise. Last week we sanded the walls of the barn conversion and painted inside. I spent 12 hours painting on Thursday! More on that soon...

Amy and Bernard got married just over a week ago in the herb garden at the botanical gardens in town. Their reception was in Port Chalmers, so we had loads of cool spots for photographs. Here are a few from the day for now...





Getting married at the herb garden means you have a nice walk along the elegant pathway before you get married.



Amy and Bernard very excited to see eachother as her dad walks away in the foreground:





They didn't stop smiling the whole time.









A moment whilst their witnesses sign the register.













We found this great old green garage for group photographs in Port Chalmers. I love green backgrounds! And the rustier the better.







Arriving at the reception:



Bernards mum did a really lovely speech:



Catering was done by Bede Beaumont catering and the food was really tasty. The highlight was this dessert display which was fantastic!





Witnessing the dessert display for the first time(!)





Amy and Bernard were such gracious, lovely people to work with and took great care of us all day. Thank you guys. Hope these few little images keep you going until you see your whole gallery. Speak to you soon xxx

Angela & Guy's Wedding

Angela and Guy got married on Saturday at the beautiful Chingford Stables. I'm just blogging a few photographs (since I'm still editing) so that they can view some with their families before they leave for a honeymoon in Thailand.

I started the day at Angela's family home, where her mum June has been busy making Angela's wedding dress. June isn't even a dress maker, she just happens to be REALLY good at it. Angela and Guy live in the UK, and came back to Dunedin not long before the wedding, so there wasn't much time to fit the dress and make adjustments before the wedding. Angela's mum June was still making the dress when I arrived to start photographing, and an hour before the wedding, Angela and her bridesmaids were still adding the finishing touches! I could not get over how calm, happy and unconcerned Angela was about this. She was truly serene.







Angela's niece and nephew were flower girl and page boy, and they were so cute.



Yey, she's in the dress and it fits perfectly!







The guys, also very happy and chilled out. I photographed them as they wandered over to watch some cricket that was happening on the other side of the gardens. Luckily I was there to photograph the men, and didn't have to subject myself to watching any cricket. Phew.



I thought the red and grey colour scheme was really classic, and it looked perfect on the day because it was overcast and misty looking (one of my favourite kinds of wedding weather), and the reds really stood out.



This was a requested shot. When I get information from my couples I ask them to tell me if there is any specific shot they would love me to capture (apart from the obvious). Angela told me she wanted a photograph of Guy's expression when he first saw her walk up to the aisle. Here it is! A delighted (and possibly slightly smug) groom.







It almost started raining towards the end of the ceremony but stayed fine. To be honest I don't think Angela or Guy would have batted an eyelid if it had started pouring down.











The stone stables building is a nice backdrop to drinks on the lawn:



Some VERY cool vintage 50s cars. In red of course.









Angela and Guy, thank you for being such easy going, lovely people to work with. I can't wait for you to see the rest of your gallery! Have a wonderful, well deserved honeymoon and speak soon xxx

Animal farm!

Here are some photographs detailing the latest happenings at our place. We're going to move into the barn this weekend - woohoo! Conversion into something liveable has taken a while since we're essentially building a flat from scratch. Laying the concrete floor took ages, we could only start work in the evenings when Steven got home from work, and we're not, you know, complete experts... The animals weren't too helpful, I managed to match up these wet concrete footprints to a certain rooster... He's looking more and more tasty by the day (joking!)





A couple more photos of our lovely dogs. Nana always looks like she's done something wrong. When its more likely to be her brother- who spends a lot of time on the naughty chain.



"Nails, have you done something wrong?"
"Me? definitely not..."



laying the concrete floor - SO boring. But hopefully worth it.





Down at the river during a very hot spell.








Collecting our furniture from Christchurch. We hired a big lorry which Steven drove. He thought he was very cool, signalling to the other lorry drivers with all the fancy lights on the front. We packed up the furniture, and I kid you not, there was not an inch of space left in the back. We were so lucky to get it all in! The dogs came with us and rode in the cab. They slept most of the way, although Nana likes to look where she's going through the front window. Nails keeps his head down and looks mildly annoyed if you go through a corner at any speed.





We came home to find that 5 of Donna's eggs had successfully hatched! We have 4 yellow chicks and one black one. I can't wait to see how they'll turn out. She led them all down the ramp to the grass at the back of the coop where she shows them how to peck, and keeps them warm in her feathers.



This one was all sleepy:







Thats all for now. I need to go and stare at the chicks again - my new hobby!