There was so much that was special about Tess and Chris’ wedding day. It was the first sunny weekend in months. The boys went skydiving in the morning. Chris survived, so it’s obviously meant to be! Tess and her girls practised the first dance in their hotel room with sparkling eyes. Tess looked like a vintage doll. The two were married by their very charming longtime family friend, father Gerry, in Chris’ school church. EVERYONE got their best dance moves out for the celebration, even Tess’s 100 year old grandmother. Chris’ dad serenaded us all with a sterling rendition of the Joker. And, having lived “down the road” from Chris and his family my whole life, I felt like part of the family. It was a day I’ll never forget.

Vendors
Ceremony: St. Anthony’s Parish Kingscliff
Reception: Cudgen Leagues Club
Band: Fathom

Tess and Chris are all about fun. I can’t wait to photograph their wedding on Saturday!

Here are a few images from our sweet little engagement session at Cudgen Creek.

Some people are incredibly lucky, and fall in love young – not just first love, but REAL love, the special kind that you have to hold on to because it’s rare and precious. I’m one of those people. So are Mel and Jason. Their gorgeous December Kingscliff wedding was beautiful in its simplicity, and touching in its honesty. And they both do an awesome tiger-face, though I’m going to leave that part up to your imagination!

When I think of all the weddings I’ve photographed to date, I think I’d have to say Mel and Nick’s was the most honest, personal and emotional. It was truly touching to witness. I’m something of a sympathetic crier, so when Mel’s tears started up right before she walked down the aisle, I had to work hard to keep my own back!

I have a lot in common with these guys – we share a love of great music (they signed the marriage register to Incubus’ “Friends and Lovers”, which is a song that’s very close to my own partner’s and my hearts) and a love of Asian, particularly Japanese, culture (hence the Hello Kitty/sakura-themed cake), and having so much in common really made me feel like I was capturing the memories of two kindred spirits. Their wedding day was such a pleasure to photograph.

I drove past the beautiful grassy patch where Mel and Nick were married recently. Kingscliff’s been experiencing some pretty drastic erosion the past few years, and that gorgeous little knoll is almost gone. Thankfully, the memories (and the photos) are still here.

Wedding ceremony: Kingscliff Beach
Wedding reception: Kingscliff Beach Bowls Club

You can’t predict the weather. Or so they tell me.

Vanessa and Marc won their sweetheart shoot in a competition I held on Facebook. We scheduled their shoot, chose a location and… it rained. The same thing happened with my other sweetheart shoot winners, and we rescheduled their shoots, but on Van and Marc’s session day the weather tricked us – it was a lovely day up until about half an hour before our session, when some massive storm clouds started rolling in. Having lived in London, it didn’t really phase Van and Marc, so we ploughed ahead and made the trek to the Fingal lighthouse for their shoot.

I do a pretty mean anti-rain dance, but it has its limits. We shot for twenty minutes before the rain started, and thanks to this gorgeous couple’s super-easygoing nature, we managed to get a bunch of really awesome shots in that time. Here are my favourites.

I’m just so in love with this photo that I can’t even wait until tomorrow to post it.
This is Mel and Nick. They got married today. It was amazing.

Things I have learned from experience about photographing children #74: bribing them with lollies works a treat! (Pardon my pun…)

If you’re planning on having a portrait session (any kind of session – not just a family shoot), I can’t recommend enough having your session at a location that means something to you. The Griffiths are from Brisbane, but they have a holiday home near this beach and spend their happiest days together jumping off sand dunes, chasing after Pip the Dog, and generally being the most adorable family ever.

That makes these photos extra-special – they’re not just a record of how the boys looked as kids and how they connected as a family in January of the year 2012 (although that stuff is super-important too), they’re also little photographic time-capsule portals to some of the most wonderful days of their lives (like sands through the hourglass… Quick! Queue the music!) when the kids built forts atop the sand dunes and buried each other under sandcastles.

Having the Griffiths’ family portrait session on this beach made their photos that much more significant. And having your photographs taken somewhere that means something to you will make yours that much more significant too.