Some people love children at weddings, some don't - and my latest couple who married at Tynley Hall, Hook were definitely in the first group.

It was a nice, small wedding and I think the children outnumbered the adults! Sometimes younger children have a habit of staring and fake smiling towards the camera every time they see it, so its part of my job to spot their real smiles and be ready to capture them when they happen. It also helps to be quick on your feet so you can keep up with them!

The photos definitely complimented the fun, relaxed vibe of the wedding and was a really enjoyable day!

Kat

I shot a great wedding at our most local venue The Berystede last week. The weather has been amazing recently and David and Nadja really benefited from it.

There were many guests from Germany and Ireland at the wedding, so for transportation a traditional red London bus had been hired. This was great for photos as the red of the bus, the blue of the sky and the great architecture of the Berystede all combined made for some excellent images!

It worked brilliantly for the bride and groom shots, group shots and also the relaxed, natural photos that make up the majority of our wedding images.

Kat

On 30th May 2009 I had the pleasure of shooting at Tylney Hall, Hook - one of our favourite venues to shoot at. Every couple hope for good weather on their wedding day, and Charlotte and Ben had the hottest day of the year so far!

Many photographers dislike very sunny days due to the difficult lighting conditions, but we like to use the light to our advantage. Bright days create very strong shadows and I looked out for these to create great composition and integrated the shadows into the photographs to create interesting effects.

Another thing we always keep in mind when photographing on very hot days is the well being of our bride and groom. For this wedding we had a nice mix of strong sunshine shots and cooler shaded shots.

Another wonderful summers day!

Hannah

May proved to be a month of marketing and promotions for us. We featured in several publications with our Pet promotion with Sunninghill Vets. We had articles written in Living Within, Ascot Matters and Ascot & Bracknell News, who angled their story more on our survival as a new business in the credit crunch.

We also had the pleasure of doing a telephone interview with 'F2 Freelance Photographer' magazine, a high end photography magazine. The magazine is aimed at freelancers and those breaking into the industry, and we were interviewed as an 'inspirational' story to others in the industry.

We had a lot of fun with the interview and were more than happy to help out fellow photographers. The article ended up being 3 pages long and included several of our favourite wedding photos (pasted below).

We hope this is the start of many magazine interviews!! :)

Hannah

At the end of May we celebrated our first Artis Studios photography course. The course was aimed at beginners and those just starting out in the world of Digital SLR's and was a huge success.

The course was made up mostly of previous and future clients (they did get first dibs after all) and we had the use of 2 fantastic models for the day. We started with a presentation explaining the fundamentals behind good photography. This led nicely onto work in the studio where we could control our lighting and showed various set ups.

After lunch we all headed out to a very busy Virginia Waters on a very hot day. This was a great place to show natural lighting conditions and the cascades also offer a great spot to show different shutter speeds.

Once back in the studio we talked the class through our photoshop process and enhanced and manipulated their photos. We have included a few here (all photos were taken by the students, we just did a bit of digital enhancement on them).

All in all it was a great day and we plan to do more courses in the future. If you are interested in future courses, please email your interest to us and we will add you to our notification list.

Hannah & Kat

This month I got to shoot for the first time at the fantastic Northbrook Park, Farnham. This beautiful venue had the right mix of great interiors and amazing gardens, providing lots of choice for the photos.

One of my favourite parts of the day were the very interesting speeches. The first was conducted by the Brides father in Dutch, the second by her Australian Aunt who toasted to her families 22 year reunion, the third was Anousjka's turn to speak, then the groom and finally the best man planned an interactive speech including the Mr and Mrs game.

Julian and Anousjka were asked some controversial questions and would have to decide whether the best answer was 'Him' or 'Her'.

This whole section proved great fun for everyone and made for some great photographs!

Hannah

We recently got to shoot back at one of our favourite venues, Oakley Court for a English/ Norweigan wedding.

Hans Martin and Susie, who live out in Oslo, booked us solely on our website and our work. We met for the first time a month before the wedding and really hit it off.

We stayed for the evening and got some fantastic shots of the dancing. They organised a Ceilidh with a fantastic band Licence to Ceilidh, who were excellent at getting everyone up. They were so good, I really wanted to stay and party afterwards, even though I was completely shattered!

We also saw a great opportunity to get some stunning bride and groom shots in the front of the house lit up at night. It's worth scheduling these type of photos in as they always come out great!

Kat

Now this is a first for me, but at a recent wedding at Seldson Park Hotel in Croydon I was absolutely amazing when both Bride and Groom said all of their wedding vows with no prompting at all from the registrar!

It was incredibly moving to see Helen and Ian say all their vows with no mistakes or interruptions and I would recommend it for anyone with the confidence to do it!

The rest of the day was great and with the bright sunshine there was many a beautiful photo to be had. I could definitely see that a lot of thought had gone into all the little touches. The day even included the classic speech joke from the father of the bride 'even the cake's in tears!'.

Kat

A windy day can create dramatic and stunning shots. Mix in a veil and you can get some wonderful photographs full of movement.

We had a gorgeous day at one of our recent weddings at Seldson Park, Croydon. The sun was shining, the temperature was warm and there was a slight breeze! Elena had a head to floor veil that once the wind caught hold of it, there was no way to control it. We got some amazing shots of this whilst Huseyn & Elena waited for their next shot.

This later inspired us to use the veil in creating some brilliant bride and groom photos.

Fantastic Day!

Kat

We shot a wonderful local wedding at the end of April, starting 2 minutes away at St Michaels & All Angels Church, Sunninghill, and then moving on to Penny Hill Park, Frimley - one of our favourite venues.

We got so many great shots at this wedding it was hard to decide a blog topic, but in the end went for the great car. The bride and groom travelled in style in a gorgeous Beauford Convertible in fantastic condition.

At Penny Hill Park we stopped to grab some photos with the car by a cherry blossom tree. We even attempted to create our own confetti shot by shaking the tree, and getting the petals to fall. Although this didn't quite work at this point (we managed to find a different tree that it worked great with later!), we got some amazing shots nonetheless!

Kat

I had a really fun wedding at Stoke Place in Buckinghamshire a few weeks ago. There were lawn games, bubbles and the groom had a very cool cane that looked great in photos!

However, the part I loved the most (and judging by the reaction so did the rest of the guests) was the surprise as they walked down the isle.

Normally there is some nice, romantic music that plays as you walk down the isle - but not for these guys. For them 'The Power of Love' came on. This was not Celine Dion or Frankie goes to Hollywood - but the Huey Lewis version!

It was excellent to see everyones faces and I got some great fun walking down the isle photos! Stoke Place is also a really modern looking building inside, and all of the cool interior decoration made a backdrop to some great bride and groom shots!

Kat

Here was a wedding I shot on Easter Saturday, with the reception held at Taplow House Hotel.

You could see that great thought had gone in to all the details that made up the day. The flowers, bridesmaids dresses, even the favours all really complimented the spring theme. As I was not hired into the evening so would miss it, Catherine opened up one of the favour boxes so I could photograph the cute little chick and easter egg inside them!

I had beautiful soft lighting which made excellent bride and groom photos. The church was absolutely gorgeous so I am really glad I persuaded the reluctant vicar to let me take a few photos!

Kat

I shot a lovely intimate wedding at Frimley Hall at the beginning of the month. The weather was great, Frimley Hall was beautifully decorated and there were two excellent pageboys who carried the rings up the aisle.

After the ceremony, and a quick lesson from the groom, the page boys joined me in capturing the events of the day with their disposal cameras. Although the younger of the page boys soon got a little bored, the older one took this role very seriously and proceeded to follow me around all day and steal all my ideas!

Usually I wouldn't encourage this, but because he was so enthusiastic I even helped him out a little and made sure he was in the best spot (well, second best next to me!) for all the important moments.

I hope he got some good shots - I know I did!

Kat

ADDITION: Our young photographers name is Harry and his mum kindly sent me the image of me he took at exactly the same time as I took his! I have attached his photo on the end of this blog. Well done Harry - now we know you did get some good shots!

At the beginning of this month I had the pleasure of shooting at Babington House, Frome, Somerset. The sun shone down on the beautiful grounds and as the wedding was on a Thurdsay all the guests had taken a day off work, which added to the high spirits.

Babington House has many unique features including it's own chapel, one of the smallest chapels I have ever shot a ceremony in. The Chapel holds 70 guests and it was full to the brim!

The chapel has stalls either side of the aisle that holds the guests (including gates to close them in) and despite being a tight squeeze made for some brilliant photos.

A fantastic day at a fantastic venue!

Hannah

I shot a great wedding last weekend at The Elvetham in Hartley Whitney. This is a really beautiful 19th century mansion and made a great backdrop for photos.

Matt and Carla had a really unique wedding with a Cornish quartet, an actual 'cheese cake' and an amazing Blues Brothers band that got everyone on the dance floor in hats and sunglasses.

There were so many photos to chose from but I finally choose the fireworks pictures as they really complimented the illuminated mansion and made a perfect end to the day!

Kat