The Wedding Reporter

Shoot date – June 2011 / February 2012

Yesterday I had a glorious day with two very special ladies; Leah of Golden Apple Designs and Leah Spicer Creative and Emma of The Wedding Reporter fame. I say fame, as everyone knows Emma. She is such a sweetheart and offers a fantastic service that cannot be paralleled. Emma is a literary genius, and I do not say that lightly. My vocabulary will not do justice to the niche career Emma has carved out so head over to her website to find out more and then come straight back! She is also featured today on the wonderful wedding blog Love My Dress as part of Annabel’s Inspirational Women in Business feature and she truly is.

Early last year, when my photography started taking over my life, I became Emma’s 1000th follower on twitter – little did I know then just how much that would change my life. Soon after, Emma asked me if I would shoot some promo images for her fab business and knowing she had much of twitter at her beck and call, I was extremely honoured to be asked and we soon set up about concocting the shoot, location and model.

We had a beautiful backdrop in Emma’s own wedding venue;  Ettington Park, with the main focus of this gorgeously decadent house, for us, being the grand library which was perfect for showcasing Emma’s roots and obvious connection with literature. Our bride for the day was the gorgeous Laura of Purple and Pearls and together we explored the venue seeking out a variety of shooting locations and it was so much fun to find out all about The Wedding Reporter concept that Emma was so very passionate about.

The images below are finally being blogged from mine and Emma’s shoot way back in June last year; I am trying to catch up with my shoots I promise!

Since this shoot, Emma has gone full time as The Wedding Reporter and has become so well known for producing the most beautiful stories from weddings all over the country and she will even be reporting for one of my couples later this year; I am so excited to be working with Emma on a real wedding! Not only did this shoot mean I got to know Emma who I adore, but my darling Leah, who produces Emma’s reports for her couples, has since become one of my closest friends and I owe all that to Emma for asking me to shoot her first images.

Yesterday, the three of us spent the day shooting the new collection of reports that Emma and Leah have been working on tirelessly for the last few months and having a really good catch up. We spent most of the day in stitches; it’s somewhat difficult for me to be in the presence of people who know big words without sounding like I have the education of a five year old. Leah and Emma taught me about Richard III (he was in a Shakespeare play or something) and in return I informed Leah that Draco Malfoy’s wife in the Harry Potter epilogue is Tom Felton’s real life girlfriend – and she says I don’t teach her anything.

I love these girls to bits (most of the time!) and I am so happy to be the official (I like to think I am at least) photographer for The Wedding Reporter, and Leah Spicer Creative. I wanted to blog a ‘little snippet’ of our day yesterday as we had so much fun and the new collection of books for The Wedding Reporter are too gorgeous not to share!

First stop; brunch (at 1pm). I enjoyed a nice big traditional full English with a coke, while these two had a fancy pants posh breakfast of posh stuff I don’t remember with tea and coffee.

Leah hard at work…

This could either be something funny in Emma’s reports, the girls have become hysterical from reading the same books a couple of hundred times each or I said something stupid…I suspect the latter.

My muse, as described by Emma, and the beautiful iron castle hanging outside our future offices we will look to own when we all win the lottery.

Emma’s ‘can we go home now please’ face while I tested the light…

It can be a rare thing nowadays where you actually get to spend time with other people in the industry. Everyone is so busy getting to know each other on twitter and facebook that actually meeting up in person is overlooked or pushed to one side, but yesterday proved to me that there really is no substitute for making some time to hang out in ‘real life’ and have a damn good laugh! I know I needed it and these girls are so much fun to hang out with; when they’re not ridiculing me that is.

I’m already excited to see what will have changed and where we will all be for our 2013 shoot – this year is going to be a fast one for sure!

Have a great Friday,

Ali xx