Marc Todd Photography

Well, this weekend was the Durham Miners Gala. It is a huge tradition in the North East, particularly for the mining communities. This year we took Victoria’s father, who was a miner himself, along to the gala. The sun was shining and thousands of people lined the streets of Durham to watch the banners from each colliery march through the City with their bands. Their were miners from all over the world, including Germany, Belgium and the USA. Some images from the Gala are below.

Marc and I spent Friday afternoon in East Anglia. Our first port of call was Brasteds (www.brasteds.co.uk) where the wedding of Tracy & Paul will take place on 16th August. This is a lovely venue in the countryside just outside of Norwich and we are very excited at the photographic possibilities!

We then went to a small village pub to meet up with Tracy and Paul for the first time. We spent a great couple of hours chatting about all sorts of things (including the wedding!). Some couples have asked us whether a pre-wedding consultation is really necessary, and we encourage everyone to meet up with us. It allows couples to get to know us and for us to get to know them. We now know that Paul loves Skiing (and his motorbike) and Tracy runs a dance troupe who will be performing at their wedding. Above all, we know far more about them both, that they are an incredibly fun couple and that they want this to reflect in their wedding. We hope that their photography will show their great personalities!

We look forward to our next trip to Norwich on August 16th which will be Tracy and Paul’s big day - look out on the blog for some teaser images soon after the wedding.

All of our packages include a Guest Montage and we often get asked what these are, so I thought I would put up a post to explain more about them.

Generally we meet with a couple a few months before their wedding to discuss plans, view their venue and spend a couple of hours taking some engagement images. Most couples, understandably, are really quite nervous about being in front of a camera as the centre of attention for the first time. The idea of an engagement shoot is to allow us to spend a couple of fun hours with the couple at a location (or three) of their choice. It allows us to get to know them and their personalities, and for them to get to know us and our style of working. By the end of the session most people are having so much fun they don’t want to stop, and have gone from really shy and nervous to being stars and loving the camera.

After the engagement shoot, we ask the couple to choose their favourite image. This image is then blown up to 16×12in and mounted in a lovely cream mount. On the day of the wedding, we take this along to their reception where we display it on a wooden easel. Their friends and family are encouraged to write messages to the couple around the frame, in essence the frame becomes a guest book.

Once the wedding is over, we replace the 16×12 engagement image (which is given to the couple to keep) with a montage of their favourite wedding images. The frame, with all of the wonderful messages, is then given to the couple to keep.

The guest montage is growing in popularity as a replacement or addition to the traditional guestbook. Most guests have commented on what a lovely idea it is and even Wayne Rooney & Coleen Mcloughlin had a guest montage at their recent Italian wedding.

Below are some images of the finished guest montage from Danielle & Neil’s wedding in April.