{Win Your Wedding Photography} One Month To Go - and the Shortlist Panel

Here we are one month into the Win Your Wedding Photography Competition, with one month left to go, how exciting.
I am loving getting people enter telling me why they think that they should win, hearing little stories and how they fell in love :) <3 I think it will be hard choosing the final 3 for the shortlist - so I thought we would bring in a panel of people.

Now a lot of people wanted to be involved, personally I think everyone just wants to be nosey, and coo and aww over the reasons. So here we have our shortlist panel who will help me narrow it down to the chosen 3!

The Panel is:
Myself, Adele from Blue Lights Photography, as we are running the competition and I will be photographing the Winner, I definately had to make up one of the panel members.

Natalie from IamNat Freelance Designer who likes to make things pretty.

Paul from Paul Inskip Photography based in Bognor Regis

Courtney from Courtney Louise Photography based in Lincolnshire

Laura from Lobster Love Handmade Jewellery Inspired by the Sea

Rebecca from Ever After Designs Unique Handcrafted Wedding Invitations and Wedding Stationery.
Phoebe from Miller Weddings Wedding Consultant from Yorkshire

Laura from Little White Book Wedding Wedding Planner based in Sheffield

Sarah from Tiny Gems Handcrafted jewellery & Heirloom Bouquets

Tracey from Creative Barnsley Developing Barnsley's arts, digital, creative & cultural sectors.

Lorna who is an editor, proofreader, academic, and translator.

Sara from Wedding Sparrow UK Wedding Blog from a Bride to Be

Vivienne is Little Wife to Little Mama Recently Married, and now on the way to Baby Making

Amy writes Labour of Love and Life Blog one of Blue Lights Photography's Brides and Proud Mummy to Alfie born on 30.05.11

Tara from Chocolate Blush Handmade Chocolates and Biscuits, made with the finest and freshest ingredients. Personalised and bespoke options.

Laura from Bonfire Night Bride Bride to Be and Blogger

Julia from Brides Up North The Premier Blog resource for Weddings in the North of the UK

Angela from Barnsley Eye The No. 1 free monthly glossy publication in Barnsley and the surrounding area.

We are also going to involve someone from Barnsley Chronicle if they wish to get involved and We Are Barnsley

So there is out List...how exciting.

Dont forget if you want to enter visit www.bluelightsphotography.co.uk/competition

{blp} A beautiful Thank you from the Bride's Daughter

I recieved an Email from Lucy a few days after her Mum's Wedding to say Thank you and asked if she minded if I shared it with you all - of course she didnt have a problem, and here it is.

Hi Adele,
I just wanted to thank you for all your support on Friday 29th April at my mums wedding as you were a fantastic support to us. You not only did a professional job with the photography but assisted us in preparing for the other arrangements on the day from the how to walk down the isle, to finding the first dance song. All of this was of course over an above what had been asked of you.
Many thanks


Lucy

Lucy was in the room helping her mum get ready, who on the Royal Wedding had a dress similar in style to the new Duchess' - the Bride was told that her dress "wasnt in fashion" and would "struggle to find one" I bet they're not saying that now!

It was an aboslutely beautiful day, and I am so glad that Lucy took the time to message me, and I cannot wait to find out Pauline & Gary's reaction to their Wedding Photographs - here are a couple of sneak peeks!

The Wedding was held at Mount Pleasant Doncaster, on Friday April 29th in the afternoon.
A totally beautiful day.

I also loved Lucy's Dress! Which for anyone interested is available here


If you are getting married then contact us on adele@bluelightsphotography.co.uk to discuss your Wedding needs, or view our website on http://www.bluelightsphotography.co.uk/

{Pre Wedding Shoot} Sneaky Peek! Sophie & Adam

I thought I'd share with you a few pictures of the sneaky peek pre-wedding shoot I had a couple of weeks ago with Sophie and Adam at the Dower House Hotel and Spa, Knaesborough

The Letters were provided by http://www.bigpopslettershop.co.uk/ and they were laid down as they would not stand on the grass! (it was a bit uneven!)

I had a lot of giggles with these two, and I cannot wait to photograph their wedding in October.
From apparant silver thongs and hotpants from Adam, to lots of other bits that I dont want to mention (incase it spoils any surprises!) but it should be a really good day!

Sophie & Adam saw me at a Wedding Fayre in February 2010 and then booked me some 12 months later! - And Sophie remembered me because I gave her sweeties!

{blp} Food Photography at the Shay Stadium

A few weeks ago I recieved an email from Catherine at the Shay Stadium, Halifax about the Wedding Fayre that they had organised for the 15th of May 2011, which I was happy to attend.

A couple of days later I was asked if I would mind going along to the stadium, to take some photographs of the room,
and the food that they produce for the Weddings,
Parties and Events that they organise there.

I didnt try or taste any of the food,
but I have to say it looks Scrummy!

This was the first time I've really photographed food in this setting and I have to say I loved it!

For More information on the Shay Stadium click here
Contact Catherine Hubbard for any conference or event bookings
Email:  mailto:catherine.hubbard@calderdale.gov.uk

Telephone: 01422 264747
Facebook

To contact us about Food Photography for your business please email adele@bluelightsphotography.co.uk and we will be able to quote you a price.

{Introducing} Your Wedding Unveiled {Guest Blog}

What is Your Wedding Unveiled?

We specialise in showcasing wedding suppliers on our recommendation directory and blog. Not only are we a wedding directory with 1000’s of wedding suppliers in one place, but we are a wedding recommendation directory. Now this is the exciting part! Any business can place an advert on a directory but there is no better advertising than word of mouth direct from happy customers. What an amazing feeling having a customer who is over the moon with the product or service YOU supplied.

It’s also such a great tool for engaged couples or anyone planning/involved in a wedding to see which suppliers come recommended and also why they come recommended. Excited? More details below!
We’re all about recommendations…
I’d first like to thank all of our users who have submitted recommendations so far.  We love reading them and they give those planning a wedding invaluable inside info on fab wedding suppliers! If you know of someone who had a perfect wedding or someone who attended one, please let them know where they can shout about it!  We want their recommendations! All you need to do is search for the supplier, click into their listing and the click ‘write a recommendation’.

If the business you want to recommend isn’t featured please use the ‘Suggest A Business’ link to submit their details for us to add ready for your recommendations.  Please note: A user can suggest a business to us to enable them to write a recommendation, whereas the supplier themselves can take up our 2 months free trial! The ‘Suggest A Business’ link would get the supplier a basic, free listing which includes only the name, county and category.

Who is Your Wedding Unveiled for?
Engaged couples, this one’s for you…Firstly, congratulations! You are about to embark on one of your most exciting adventures yet…planning your wedding! We want to provide you (and anyone else involved in planning your wedding) with a comprehensive wedding directory service with loads of wedding services local to you along with the added bonus of positive recommendations. Wedding planning can be stressful (definitely been there and done that!) and we aim to make it that little bit easier with real customer testimonials giving the inside scoop on literally, everything wedding!

Married couples…until you’ve been married I really don’t think you can appreciate the need to talk about your wedding day at every possibly opportunity! First there’s the run up to it…MEGA exciting! Then there’s the day itself…amazing is an understatement, then there’s the honeymoon, when you get your photographs, oh and then when you get your album, and let’s not forget your first anniversary…it’s fab! I know I still jump at the chance of talking about my wedding (9 months ago), amazing, amazing, AMAZING!!

YWU lets you gush away to all of the UK about the best day of your life thanks to the amazing suppliers you used. We would love to hear from you and writing a recommendation couldn’t be easier, you will need to sign up but…it’s free! We simply need to know about your fabulous suppliers from venues to florists, photographers to bridal shops, suit hire to bridesmaid dresses, wedding jewellery to wedding blogs, dove release to fireworks…everything and anything wedding! If the service you want to recommend isn’t featured, no problem! Click ‘suggest a business’ and we’ll add it ready for you to recommend away. The great thing is, ANYONE can write a recommendation whether you were the bride or groom, bridesmaid or best man, mother of the bride/groom or even a guest, we’d love to hear from you.
You fabulous wedding suppliers…You help make these amazing weddings happen, here’s where we repay you! We want to provide local wedding vendors across the UK with a platform to showcase your services. Get a full page dedicated to you and only you, and let your customers shout from the rooftops how you helped make their big day. We’re a recommendation directory and your customers can tell everyone about you and why they would recommend you. Told you the recommendation part was important!


How do brides and married couples use the recommendation directory?
The recommendation directory service is free to brides-to-be and anyone involved in planning a wedding, who would like to find fabulous suppliers to make their dream wedding!

It’s also free to married couples who would like to rave about their big day by writing recommendations about the suppliers who contributed to the best day of their lives!

ANYONE who has been involved in or attended a wedding can write recommendations.

It’s great to get different perspectives from brides, grooms, bridesmaids, best men, ushers, mother of the bride/groom, guests…EVERYONE! Click log in, enter your details and voila! You’re signed up to browse and recommend as much as you like.

The Your Wedding Unveiled Blog
We are constantly looking for new wedding suppliers to showcase to all of the YWU brides-to-be. It is a rota basis of 5 days per business and is operated on a 1st come, 1st served basis.  Please email advertise@yourweddingunveiled.co.uk for more information. Tell all our brides about your fab wedding service or product!

Wedding suppliers can showcase on our 2 months FREE trial
Wedding suppliers can also showcase with us FREE on our 2 months, no obligation trial. Get a full page all about you and your amazing service or product with up to 10 pictures, description, summary, special offer section, pricing, web link and MORE. Visit http://www.yourweddingunveiled.co.uk/ and click ‘log in’ to start creating your listing today…

Where can you find Your Wedding Unveiled?

Although we are based in the North East lucky for us (and you!) we are everywhere thanks to the powers of the World Wide Web! http://www.yourweddingunveiled.co.uk/
Also find us shouting about new supplier listings and recommendations on Facebook and Twitter:

www.facebook.com/yourweddingunveiled

@WeddingUnveiled

Come and join the Your Wedding Unveiled revolution!
Sarah
xoxo

{blp} Friday 13th - Today we have a Wedding.

In honour of today being the Friday the 13th and is the only one in 2011 - I have a Wedding today.
Now my bride is pregnant, and if you are superstitious, you would probably not photograph a wedding this day, not at least when the bride is due to give birth within a month of getting married. I kid you not.
She has managed to get a few bits cheaper, due to Friday 13th being a date that is meant to be a day of back luck. This date will appear between one and 3 times a year. Any month that starts on a Sunday, the 13th day will fall on a Friday. That is the random fact for you.

Friday the 13th occurs when the thirteenth day of a month falls on a Friday, which superstition holds to be a day of bad luck. In the Gregorian calendar, this day occurs at least once, but at most three times a year. Any month's 13th day will fall on a Friday if the month starts on a Sunday.

The fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia (Frigga being the name of the Norse goddess for whom "Friday" is named and triskaidekaphobia meaning fear of the number thirteen - Thank you wikipedia!

Taken from Wikipedia

Consequently, several theories have been proposed about the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition.

One theory states that it is a modern amalgamation of two older superstitions: that thirteen is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day.

In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, twelve gods of Olympus, etc, whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners.

Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century's The Canterbury Tales, and many other professions have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Black Friday has been associated with stock market crashes and other disasters since the 1800s. It has also been suggested that Friday has been considered an unlucky day because, according to Christian scripture and tradition, Jesus was crucified on a Friday.

A theory by author Charles Panati, one of the leading authorities on the subject of "Origins" maintains that the superstition can be traced back to ancient myth:

The actual origin of the superstition, though, appears also to be a tale in Norse mythology. Friday is named for Frigga, the free-spirited goddess of love and fertility. When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labelled a witch. It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil — a gathering of thirteen — and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as "Witches' Sabbath."

If you want to get married on Friday 13th there are three in 2012, one in Jan, one in April and one in July. There are two in 2013, one in September and one in December, and 2014 has a singular one in June.

Whatever you are doing today, please enjoy it, and stay away from anything “bad” if you are superstitious!

{Supporting} The Any Campaign

Now with the laws being changed for night-time weddings, just before this Penny and Martin from Tino & Pip Photography had launched the Any Campaign.

Currently the law states that a marriage ceremony venue must have a roof and be moored to its foundations and licensed by the local registrar.

In the Yorkshire area, I know of one venue where you can marry outside, in the open bandstand, because it is a solid, permanent structure - and has a roof.

And like Penny says on the any campaign - there are thousands of gorgeous wedding venues up and down the country, but what if you wanted something different?

What if you look and read several wedding blogs and see all the garden ceremonies and picnic wedding tea-parties, the beach weddings - etc, of people allowed to do this abroad - but we can not do it here.

Penny discovered that there was a Government White Paper in 2002 proposing to relax these laws, but it was put on the backburner before anything came of it. In 2005 a ‘consultation document’ was published proposing such modernisations, but as yet no timetable has been announced.

The Any Campaign therefore requests your help in bringing this matter back into consideration so that we can all have the wedding of our dreams!

Please visit http://www.theanycampaign.co.uk/ to find out more and to sign the petition :)

{blp} Night Time Weddings - do suppliers not work enough?

In Feburary it was announced that night-time weddings will be able to take place in the UK, in plans by the government. Whilst there was no date of when this would take place it was just detailed as “in the future”.

The changes allowing marriages to take place 24 hours a day in England and Wales are part of the Protection Of Freedoms Bill.

Couples can currently only get married between 8am and 6pm under rules that date back to the 1800’s - so its about time that something was changed. Scotland have no rules about timings, but Northern Ireland is the same as Britain.

“The Church of England says a relaxation in the times of church weddings would require a change to Canon Law from the General Synod, which meets twice a year. And the Catholic Church has reportedly said it would not conduct late night ceremonies.
But the changes are expected to boost the demand for evening civil wedding ceremonies, especially in the summer months.” - BBC

It was only in 2002 that rules were amended to allow ceremonies to take place at sites other than Churches, registry offices or specially licensed venues - to allow places such as Blackpool Tower, Tower Bridge and race courses to host weddings.

15-days notice will still be required - so no Las-Vegas style weddings will be happening here!
I found, especially around the time that it was announced, that there were a lot of negative comments from some Wedding professionals - mainly detailing that the work/life balance of people with children was going to be affected.

I have found that people in the industry with children, will either choose to work a specific date, or not. If it was a photographers child’s birthday on a weekend OR shoot a wedding, a lot would probably turn the date down - to spend time with their child on their special day. Especially for milestone birthdays particularly!

I’m shot a Wedding Easter Sunday - but this doesn’t bother me - as being self employed is all about choosing our own working hours.

I do however think, it may bring in some different styles of Weddings. I love the idea personally of a later summer evening wedding, just before the sun is setting as its getting cooler (because I burn really bad!) and having this at about 7pm, then into the night do and party away. Or have a late evening meal, and a few drinks. Lists are endless.

So if that’s the possibility, of getting married out of the normal hours (especially the latter) means that smaller ceremonies and weddings could come in to play. A lot of people are currently getting married at 3:30pm or 4:pm to “cut down” on the amount of time they are actually having their wedding and to reduce costs, so isn’t this just a way to help and assist that?

I personally think it just means that suppliers, like myself, will just have to treat every wedding like it is a different one, as I do with all my weddings, and just take it from there. If we get an influx of 7pm or 10pm brides, then lets go for something different. Yes it may be dark, but its no different to a Wedding at 4pm in November.

So….what do you think?

{Win} Photoshoot Competition

To Celebrate getting to 1600 Likers/Fans on Facebook we are running a competiton as a thank you for all our new, and old clients.  To win the following:

First Prize: 1-hour Photshoot of your choice and 50% off one framed print/canvas

Second Prize: 1-hour Photoshoot

Third Prize: £10 voucher

All you have to do is leave a message on this post telling me why you want to win!
The number of your comment will be the number of your entry - and the winners will be generated at Random.

Good Luck

Here are some ideas of what you can use it for!

{Launch} Cakey Baby - For First and Second Birthdays

We are pleased to announced that we are launching Cakey Baby!

I’m not really sure why I came up with the idea to actually do this - but I know it is quite big in America of the “Cake Smash” territory, but I wanted something that was fun - and a name that would stick - so Cakey Baby was born.

Our initial test shoots for Cakey Baby were with shop bought cakes, which just weren’t soft or squishy enough - and having spoken to Amanda at Burgoynes Cupcakes regarding this - we decided to team up together!

Our Cakey Baby shoots are a fabulous way to mark a milestone - specifically aimed at 1 and 2 year olds! And lets just state - the kids will try and eat too much cake - and will get messy - this isn’t for the faint hearted - or as one parent called herself the “neat-freaks”

We offer four packages of our Cakey Baby shoots - and each comes with delicious home made cakes from Burgoynes Cupcakes.


We use one of her magnificent Giant Cupcakes covered in bright coloured butter cream and limited decoration as the Smash Cake - but not only that - you get a Mini-Giant Cupcake to take home as a replica and obvious taster of the day!

The shoot starts with a “normal” photoshoot of the child/family for the milestone birthday - and then when these images are done we ask parent to strip off said birthday child down to just a nappy (or will soon be able to use one of the nappy covers we are just sourcing!) and for little girls, they are more than welcome to also use our tu-tu’s - and whilst this is going on, we are cake-proofing the studio-flooring. When this is done, we place the child - and the cake - and begin shooting.

With these being for milestone birthdays we offer "Cakey Baby packages" with the option to purchase different items if you so wish to.

Current Cakey-Baby Pricing is as follows:

Cakey Baby Includes
Photoshoot of Birthday Child

Photoshoot of Child with Cake

Cake to Smash

Take home Cake

£50.00

Cakey Baby Canvas
Cakey Baby Package
20x16 Montage Canvas
Buy together and save over £35

£95.00

Cakey Baby Book
Cakey Baby Package

8" Square Cakey Baby keepsake book with 20 images
£110.00

Cakey Baby Deluxe
Cakey Baby Package
Cakey Baby Canvas
Cakey Baby Book

Buy as a package and save over £50
£155.00

 

To book your cakey-baby shoot we advise that you do so at least 1-month before the child's birthday. This is so that we can make sure the cake's are prepped and ready, and we can book the date either on, or closest to your child's birthday.

If you have a child that has just had a birthday but would still love a cakey-baby shoot, then please enquire with us and we shall get you into us at the earliest opportunity.

You can book via:

Telephone: 01226 872 491
Text: 07825 444 953
Email: adele@bluelightsphotography.co.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bluelightsphotography

Please be advised that we do ask for a 50% deposit to secure all bookings of cakey-baby shoots.