Judith got ready in a lovely light, posh suite overlooking the golf course:

Aldwark Church is very pretty and walking distance from Aldwark Manor, plus I know the vicar well, so all in all it’s a top church!

Judith works in jewellery – can you tell?!

The room was staged by Angel Events in Harrogate, and looked breathtaking.  A winter wonderland greeted the guests as they entered the wedding breakfast room, complete with real fir trees (if trees are good enough for Kate Middleton…)

Caroline is a twin, she and her sister are very close and did each others make up on the wedding morning.

Handsome….

but still his usual self!  Erik was a great fun with a rather wicked sense of humour.

Just look at Caroline’s outfit.  Fab!

That dress was made for dancing.

Did I mention Erik was a little wicked?  Well he even had to have his own, colourful cake.  He didn’t fancy totally fitting in with Caroline’s careful colour scheme ;-)

That’s all folks.  I’m very glad I realised the error and got round to posting this wedding, it’s one of my favourites.

I didn’t have far to go for their engagement session, just a few steps over the fence. Their wedding at Newburgh Priory complete with a horse and carriage will soon be on the blog, but for now, here are the gorgeous couple strutting their stuff next door.

A silly one!

Sam grew rather a lot last year:

(Still getting to grips with the blogstomp app – please ignore the msg while I try it out!)

My Pinterest board for the christening:

I made a rainbow cake for my Auntie’s 50th, and decided  to make one on theme for the table.  I used Americolour gel food colours in everything, it’s the first time I’d used them but they are great, really bright colours that don’t run.  I made the bunting for the cake by printing out stripes and polka dot designs onto plain paper, cutting it out into diamonds and sticking them (folded in half) onto divine twine.  The icing is buttercream (butter, icing sugar and lemon juice), piped on in swirls.

The tablecloth came from Waitrose and the streamers from ebay.

Rosie spent a small fortune on Washi tape (coloured and patterned masking tape) in Canada, and I made the food label flags by sticking it onto food picks and sticking them into marshmallows so they’d stand up.  I wrote on the names of the cakes with a sharpie pen.

The cupcakes cases are Paper Eskimo ones from The Cake Decorating Company.  I made the chocolate buttons by using Wilton candy melts and a silicone button mould that was about £3 on eBay.  The key is to put the melts into a piping bag, melt carefully in the microwave (don’t over heat), and then pipe into the mould being careful not to overfill.  Then bang the mould on the worktop several times to get rid of air bubbles.

The biscuit lollipops were pretty easy.  The recipe is from Peggy Porschen’s book – both the books have the same recipe.  It’s great because the biscuits don’t really spread at all during baking, but the key is to make the dough the day before and leave it in the fridge overnight, or even for a few days.  I got paper sticks so that they could go in the oven (the plastic ones can’t).  Roll out the mixture quite thickly (I use two bits of dowling and keep the rolling pin on those either side of the dough, so that when you roll it out it’s all perfectly even), cut out your shape and remove the excess, and then with one hand on top of the cut out biscuit, carefully push the stick in about an inch.  It’s a bit of a knack, but if you go wrong just roll it out again and have another go.

Then ice them with royal icing (150ml egg whites, 1 kg icing sugar, splash of lemon juice plus more to get to the consistency you need).  Morrisons sells piping bags that are perfect, they are plastic which are better than paper as the icing stays moist, so if you get bored or need a break you can have one without the icing going hard and getting ruined.

I found this recipe for the pink smartie cookies a while ago when I was looking for a white chocolate and raspberry recipe.  It’s on the carnation milk recipe and these cookies are so yummy, you will want to eat them all.  They freeze well, so make up a load and put some in the freezer (a tin of condensed milk makes double the recipe shown), and then you can just get them out and in 10 mins have fresh cookies.  A guaranteed way to look like a domestic goddess ;-)  The recipe is easily adapted, add cocoa for double chocolate cookies, etc.  As I wanted these to fit with the theme I bought a couple of tubes of pink smarties and used those instead of white chocolate, and omitted the raspberries.  By the way, the raspberry ones are lovely, but they keep much longer without them.

The white cake was our wedding cake, from July 2007!  I had it prefessionaly re-iced, my skills don’t stretch to that!

I’m trying out the new Blogstomp app, which is why there is a watermark on the images.  It let’s you put montages like this together easily and quickly.

I have more photos to share of the rest of the christening, but first things first ;-)

I have to confess I was just a teeny bit nervous as well as excited when Jamie asked me if I’d photograph his wedding – it was the first gay wedding I had been asked to photograph and I wondered what I would need to do differently. Well as it turned out…nothing! Having a girl and a boy or a boy and a boy makes little difference (although there was much mirth when a little visitor to Fountains Abbey walked past the couple and asked his mum ‘where’s the bride?’!).  The feelings, the love, the guests and the champagne were no different at all, and I have to say I really really enjoyed being a part of Jamie and Joel’s day, which was very relaxed and incredibly friendly.  So roll up civil partnerships, I’m ready and waiting.

Jamie and Joel decided to walk down the aisle together.  How happy do they look!

The AMAZING flowers are by the lovely Susie at Hart Company

Not much has changed from a client point of view, I will still be holding portrait days at Newby Hall, and weddings of course are always on location. Engagement sessions will also be on location now as well. I will be holding wedding consultations, portrait viewings, and pre-wedding meetings at my home office.

That’s to my lovely husband, it’s a lovely office – with (almost) straight wallpaper, fresh paint, and even an open fireplace. I’m thinking about installing a wood burning stove to keep nice and cosy in winter. I will look forward to welcoming you here, and of course having a cuppa and a biscuit!

The new address is:
Holly Cottage,
Flawith,
York,
YO61 1SF

Now I’ve been terrible at blogging recently, and have been on maternity leave so only working on a few ‘keeping in touch days’, but here is one of my favourite images from a wedding last month. Maternity leave officially ends now, so I’ll be back working with no excuses not to blog!

I won’t bore you with hundreds of photos, but here are a just a few of my favourites so far. Already looking back I can’t believe how much she’s changed. Photos are so important. My Mum said that you look at your baby every day, and they always look the same. Then, one day you wake up and they’re 18. It’s so true.

Some are snapshots taken on a phone, others are taken on my professional camera. All are very precious memories (WARNING: becoming a Mum makes you soppy).

I will blog again soon, honest! I have weddings, engagements and portraits to share. Watch this space!