Anna and Phil live in Christchurch, and I only met them last week when they travelled down to Dunedin for a few days. We met up early on Sunday morning for our planned Engagement Session. They told me about their lucky earthquake escapes (Anna works out of town and Phil happened to be away with work), and we had a brief chat before getting on with our photographs.

These two are such lovely people, I felt instantly at ease talking with them. Their wedding up in Oamaru is next week (!!) and it sounds beautiful. They're not having a bridal party at all, so we can concentrate on all the images I love - just the two of them together.

This was a good practice session - and an unusual time of day for me to be photographing. Actually an unusual time of day for me to be up and dressed! But the light is beautiful in the morning, and well worth it.

I'm so lucky at the moment, the weddings I'm shooting are in such diverse and quirky little places. Melissa and Mat's is a case in point. The ceremony was held at Ombrello's courtyard restaruant/bar right here in the centre of town. I love working in Dunedin - it's great to be able to hang with Elmer and then just pop in the car and drive down the road.

Melissa and Mat are both really creative types, but also relaxed and down to earth enough not to want to spend every waking minute preparing wedding details. This was a simple, pared-down ceremony, followed by drinks in the courtyard and a reception in the classical wooden-panelled ballroom at the Savoy.

I love the guys suits, Melissa's hair (she's a hairdresser so it had to be good really), the uber-cool car (with a porthole!!!!) and the easy way M&M interact with eachother. Talking of M&M, how cool is that for a couple-initial?? Hopefully now married they will get huge monogrammed matching dressing gowns.

A typical afternoon (if the weather is fine) involves Steven out building the house, whilst me and Elmer entertain ourselves inside. Even though I have an Elmer-run set up (much like one of those hamster entertainment tunnels), with books, toys, a carpet outside with his cars on.... Elmer prefers to sit with me. I allow him more sesame street youtube clips than I would ideally like, but it means I can just get a few more images edited before we move on to something else.





This is our favourite one by the way. I love the dragon!

Carrie and Toby live in Perth with their gorgeous baby daughter Ruby, so all our communication prior to their wedding last week was by email or Skpye. Sometimes with a wedding like this where I only get to meet people on the day itself, I might feel a little nervous. However, I think because Carrie and Toby made it so clear how much they trusted me beforehand, this time I felt totally at ease. Carrie let me know roughly the type of location shots she was after, the timetable of the day, and that was it - over to me!

We had a bit of a mission (Liana and I) travelling up to Geraldine, and the journey took longer than we had planned. Therefore our 'scouting location time' was eaten into, and on arrival I asked Liana to drive around and pick out a couple of spots. I trust her. Ideally we wanted a rusticky old barn (in red?), and something a bit vintagey and cute. Oh and take into account the direction of the sun too, I said, we want everything backlit. No pressure! Liana spent 30 minutes driving around and found better spots than I could have in a whole day. A beautiful old red barn in a field of green grass, a super cute barber's shop and an alleyway behind a rusty gate. She was on fire!!

Carrie's wedding style is very much my thing. I think it's incredible how you can buy things on ebay, get crafty and make things, order stuff online, and co-ordinate florists and suits and dresses all from thousands of miles away and have it come together this well. I'm in awe! The venue - Stoneridge in Geraldine is stunning but simple, and provided a backdrop for a very intimate, loving, stylish wedding full of nice touches, laughter and good music.

These guys were at Jennifer and David's wedding, and Sophie was the ultra cute baby I photographed (and blogged). I met up with them last week to photograph Sarah, Ollie and Sophie as a family up at their place on the peninsula.

I just love it when people specifically want something less conventional and are willing to let me do my thing. These guys make such relaxed, loving parents, I really wanted to capture the relationship they have with their baby daughter, and they were happy to leave me to it. Isn't she lush? We were all a bit nervous about the summer weather (hello Dunedin?!!!!) but actually the midday slot we organised was very overcast and made for perfect lighting. Plus it wasn't freezing cold, woohoo!

I'm really enjoying baby shoots post-Elmer (I mean, post having-Elmer!) since I understand each age a little better. Plus it's nice to have a change of pace from the weddings.