Our good friend Mary has this rather beautiful Weimarana, called after a rather famous singer.

One of my favourite weddings from last year was Sam and David’s, at the boutique hotel Baglioni in Kensington. Sam and David are a delight to be with and very keen on the creative photography aspect of their wedding day. They have just received their album, so here are a few spreads to share with you. Needless to say the Steve Shipman Photography logo is not on their album pages!

It’s been an emotional week for all of us, and we decided to have a good walk to blow the cob-webs away, and found ourselves at Walberswick, on a cool and windy day with moments of sunshine. It was just what we needed, a stomp about to settle our thoughts and feelings, with the wind in our faces and the waves crashing alongside us – we had the best of the day.

Sara and Brian had their reception at the magnificent Brocket Hall and amazingly the sun shone on that day. With a beautiful white Rolls Royce and bright red London Buses, it was a classic English wedding, which will have impressed everyone there, especially the American groom and his family and friends over from The States. Here is just a taster with more to follow soon.

Just a note to say thank you to all you lovely couples, brides-to-be, mums, dads, brothers, sisters, friends and mates that stopped at our stand to chat about your wedding plans. We had a great weekend at the fair, and you all seemed to be impressed with what we do, and how we can help to make your wedding day go smoothly, while creating a beautiful record of your day for you.

It’s so tricky choosing images for a new card and then arranging the chosen ones into a coherent design. Well this is the 567th version, and I’m sticking with it! It’s an A4 card folded, hence the upside down panel when it’s not folded! We have the National Wedding Fair this weekend ay Olympia in London, so it would ge great to see some of you there – come and say hello, what a great blog you have!

Manda and I had a day off and went to see the snowdrops at Benington Lordship and although the snowdrops were beautiful, the best part for me was West Mersea, a few miles east. I have never seen so many pastel coloured beach huts, all perfectly in line, yet each one slightly different. The owners want their hut to conform with the rest, but with a little hint of individuality.

Despite the freezing weather, we all ventured into Verulam Park and made some great photos. The children didn’t seem to mind the cold as much as Florian, their Dad, and I did. The park and the Abbey make a great backdrop for photos, and in a couple of hours I had taken a couple of hundred photos. Here are just a few…

My father-in-law Cliff is very unwell at the moment. I had wanted to make this portrait of him for a long time, and spurred on by his illness I did the shoot over the Christmas holiday. Cliff’s life-long passion is time, clocks and clock makers, and here he is in his workshop bringing back to life another old clock…

I have started to do a lot more pre-wedding shoots – I really enjoy them and it’s great pressure-off time to do some creative portraits and get to know each other better.

Aimee and Grant are into their photography, indeed Grant is a photographer. I guess it could go either way with shooting a photographer, we photographers are all perfectionists and we all know what we’re doing! Fortunately Grant is a lovely easy-going guy and enjoyed his time on the other side of the lens. He and Aimee wanted to push the boundaries a bit and loved the idea of a grungy/industrial background for their photos. Grant had heard about a disused station, so after a bit of trying to see over walls and through bushes, we found it and produced this fun and atmospheric set of images.

Just a note to say that we’ll be at the National Wedding Show on the 19th 20th and 21st February at Olympia in sunny London town. We have a stand there every year, and it’s a great opportunity for us to meet our future clients.

So do come along and say hi, whether you are a bride-to-be or one of our lovely existing clients. We’ll have all our latest sample albums to show off, and it’s a good show to source loads of other wedding details. We are on stand C38. See you there.

Here are some pictures from the brilliant couple that are Allison and Richard. I did their pre-wedding shoot only a few weeks ago (see my earlier post) and from that session I knew that they were going to be fun on the day. The wedding was at one of my favourite haunts Fanhams Hall and after a moving ceremony we braved the snow and Ice and went outside. Little did we know how much snow would come down later – journeys of 40 minutes turned into 4 hour cross-country challenges. But I digress – Allison and Richard just had Love written all over them. Here are some photos to illustrate that theme…