Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending the Best of Bury St Edmunds annual birthday party at the Ickworth Hotel.

Ickworth Hotel is just outside Bury St Edmunds in the lovely village of Horringer. Recently they underwent a change in management and the new team there are doing a fantastic job! All the guests at the birthday bash were treated to amazing canapés and champaign on their arrival.

For those planning a wedding, the Ickworth Hotel is a great place to start – it’s attached to the grand Ickworth House, which makes a stunning backdrop to your wedding photography. The staff, as I’ve already mentioned, are always happy to go out of their way to make sure that everything is perfect for your intimate wedding.

While last Wednesday had nothing to do with weddings, you know me, I love talking about my wedding photography!

Aside from a chance to meet up with other members of the Best of Bury St Edmunds (BOB) group and enjoy a few glasses of bubbly in lovely surroundings – it was also a chance for Miriam Howell, the owner of BOB and Michele Bailey to hand over awards to two local businesses. I was on hand to take some images of the evening.

The main award was for ‘Retailer of the year 2009′, which was awarded to Lily Daly of Lilyo.

Here are Miriam and Michele presenting Lily with her award – also pictured is Abby Hunt of St Nicholas Hospice Care

Lilyo is a shop on St Johns street in Bury St Edmunds which sells, amongst other gorgeous things, hand crafted pearl jewellery.

Congratulations to all those who were presented with awards!

Thank you again to all the staff at Ickworth Hotel.

If you are thinking of having a wedding at the Ickworth Hotel, then I’d love to chat with you about my amazing wedding photography!

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of shooting Sam and Graham at the Angel Hotel Bury St Edmunds.

This was a special wedding for me personally as they were the first couple to book me as their wedding photographer when I moved to Suffolk from South Africa two years ago!

It was a wonderful Spring day back in May when I met them at the Angel Hotel in Bury St Edmunds…

Sam and Graham had chosen to have a intimate wedding with just their families and a few friends in attendance. Weddings like this have a charm all of their own, quite unlike giant lavish affairs. Indeed, one of their charms is their size.

The Wedding party all met at the Angel Hotel where General Manager Lynn Cowan met them and put them at ease with her efficient service. I always like to see this as it’s one of my own personally held beliefs that every person involved in a wedding should go out of their way to ensure that the couple are as relaxed and looked after as  possible. After all, it’s their big day, so nothing should stop them enjoying it.

The Angel is a registered venue for weddings in Bury St Edmunds. Sam and Graham had chosen to have both their service and reception there at the hotel. The service itself was a wonderful moment with both Sam and Graham looking as happy as can be. After they had signed the registry and received all the guests congratulations we moved to the Abbey Gardens for the wedding photography.

One of the benefits of shooting weddings at the Angel Hotel is that it is right across the road from the award winning Abbey Gardens – a perfect venue for a bride and grooms wedding photos.

If you are interested in hiring me for your wedding at the Angel Hotel Bury St Edmunds, then please visit my wedding photography website.

Seeing as the wedding season is taking a little bit of a breather, I thought I’d talk about some of the venues it’s been my privilege to shoot weddings at here in wonderful Suffolk.

I’m going to start off with the Grange Hotel in Thurston – A wonderful late Victorian house (well, I say house, it’s more of a mansion!) in the Tudor style, which is a very popular wedding venue here in Suffolk between Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket.

I’ve shot a number of weddings here recently and I’ve always found the staff at Thurston Grange very helpful (essential in ensuring your wedding day goes without a hitch!) and the venue is both intimate and grand. It’s got all the airs and graces you would expect from a grand country house, but with a personal touch that I know many brides like. During the summer, the doors are thrown open and your wedding guests can enjoy the wonderful garden, and in the cooler months, there are wonderfully appointed rooms inside where they will be entertained in style.

Thurston Grange is also a licensed wedding venue which means that you can have all of your wedding under one roof if you like. For those of you who aren’t getting married in a church, this can be a Godsend. English law requires that venues are licensed to have civil marriage ceremonies performed on their grounds and Thurston Grange is an approved wedding venue.

Click here to see more of my work as a Suffolk photographer.

I’ll leave you with some images taken from recent weddings I photographed at the Thurston Grange Hotel.

Something brides quite often ask me is – ‘what happens if it rains on my wedding day?’

Now that Autumn is upon us and soon we will be in the winter, the weather is playing more of a role in planning for your wedding day. While everyone knows that the “Great British Summer” isn’t exactly the most stable of weather periods, people are less worried then about the chances of it being inclement on their wedding day.

Brides are naturally worried that if it rains on their wedding day that they won’t have any good images of themselves. After all, we generally picture sunny days and blue skies when we think of outdoor wedding photography.

A ‘proper’ professional will be able to answer any concerns you might have regarding the weather and how it will effect your images. Part of a professionals skill is to take conditions that aren’t all that favourable and turn them to the bridal couples advantage.  I have shot some wonderful images at weddings when the light has faded behind a huge cloud, or the wind has picked up and the rain has come down. Rather than throw my hands up in horror, I use the weather and create images that have a wonderful mood and feel to them.

A good example of this is rain.

I think it’s safe to say that most brides (if not ALL brides) would prefer it if it didn’t rain on their wedding day! The natural reaction is to move indoors and forget the outdoors photography. Granted, if the heavens have opened and it’s raining the proverbial cats and dogs, it may be a good idea to seek some shelter, but if it’s a light rain – crack out the brollies, chuck on some wellies and before you know it, you’ll have pictures from your wedding like no other! Another thing to consider is that after it has rained, colours are so much more vibrant – especially during autumn when the leaves are those wonderful shades of reds, yellows, golds, and oranges.

Just last week I was shooting a wedding at the Bury St Edmunds registry office here in Suffolk and the weather played a part in creating some amazing images.

Emily and Rory had booked me to cover their wedding. It was a lovely intimate affair, just themselves, family and the kids. For those of you who don’t know, the registry office in Bury St Edmunds is behind the cathedral and looks onto the Abbey Gardens. An amazing mix of wonderful trees, a whole range of buildings from Norman, Tudor and Victorian times and of course the Abbey itself. All in all, a perfect venue for wedding photography.

Unfortunately the weather decided that it was going to treat us all to a dull, grey day with persistent drizzle.  Not exactly the most ideal conditions that any bride has ever wished for. I knew that the weather was going to be like this all day so I arrived at the venue about an hour before I was supposed to to scout around and see what alternative plans I could make for the bride and grooms wedding photos.  Obviously I could shoot pictures indoors at the registry office, but I did want to try and incorporate some of the awesome backdrops into their album.

Taking that little bit of extra preparation paid off as I wandered around a corner that I hadn’t been round before and found an absolutely awesome Victorian doorway and staircase. Perfect as it was not only a fantastic setting, but also afforded the bride and groom some cover from the incessant rain while I shot beautiful pictures of them. Luckily my camera is what’s called ‘weather sealed’ – i.e it won’t freak out by being rained upon – unlike most lower end cameras, and I can be drip dried

When we got round to moving outdoors for the wedding photos, it was still raining, so I took Emily and Rory to my new ’secret’ venue along with some umbrellas and we got to shooting. It was great, the doorway and staircase framed them perfectly, the alcove kept them dry (no bride wants to have her hair get wet!) and the brollies provided a fun prop for them to play with.

All in all, a success.

If you’d like to know more about how to get the best wedding photographer in Suffolk, clicky click!