I hope you’ll join me,

Kathryn x

Life has changed since then, Matt has moved away from scavenger hunts and raft building with the boys and can now be found clearing up oil spillages out at sea. He also has a beautiful fiancé named Emily who is soon to be his bride. Of course, we chatted about their wedding plans and the fact that I’m a wedding photographer and I was delighted when they later got in touch to say they wanted to book. We met at the Royal Victoria Country Park at the end of the summer for Emily and Matt’s Hampshire engagement shoot and after a day of blue skies and sunshine, we were a little disappointed when the clouds appeared just as we were about to begin. However, a few clouds didn’t spoil our fun and I was very impressed with Emily and Matt. Not only had they made a lot of effort with their outfits for the engagement shoot, they were also great to work with and posed beautifully for the camera. Emily looked stunning in her gorgeous red dress and I can’t wait to see her wedding dress!

Please click on the image below to be taken to Emily and Matt’s very own wedding website which I created for them. Here you will be able to view the images from their engagement session. Enjoy!

Emily and Matt will be getting married on 8th December 2012 at New Place in Shirrell Heath. De Vere New Place is a great Hampshire wedding venue and is a delight to photograph.

If you’re planning a Hampshire wedding or a wedding at De Vere New Place then please get in touch to see if I’m the Hampshire wedding photographer for you.  You can contact me by emailing info@kathrynandrewsphotography.com or by completing the contact form on the main website.

Hampshire Wedding Photographer Portfolio Slideshow

If you’d like to chat about your Hampshire Wedding Photography, or indeed wedding photography in any other county, please feel free to email info@kathrynandrewsphotography.com or call me on 01489 880156. For more information, please also visit www.kathrynandrewsphotography.com

Carly and Mark, you guys were great fun to work with and we’re so happy to have been part of your day. Thank you also for feeding us – always appreciated! I’m very envious that you went to Hawaii for your honeymoon – that’s where I want to go for mine! Congratulations to both of you and we wish you many years of happiness together. Below are a few photos we captured on the day…

To view more of Carly and Mark’s wedding photos, please click the image below where you will be taken to their wedding website…

If you would like to enquire about your Highfield Park Wedding Photography or indeed wedding photography at any other venue, please feel free to get in touch by emailing info@kathrynandrewsphotography.com or by completing the contact form.

To see more examples of my wedding photography, please visit the galleries over on the main website.

The day finally arrived for Keith and I to pack our bags and take the two and a half hour drive from Southampton, Hampshire to Folkestone in Kent for the wedding of the delightful Stephanie Langley and Keith Devon. We met with them for an engagement shoot a couple of months back and we felt so relaxed in their company. It was like meeting up with old friends. Steph (a police officer) and Keith (a web designer) are two of the loveliest, sincerest people you could hope to meet. As well as liking the photos, Steph felt that there were a lot of other similarities between us which prompted her to make the booking for her wedding photography. We drove to Folkestone the night before the wedding so that we could be there, ready to capture all the wedding preparations bright and early.

As legend tells it (or at least the way their families tell it), cupid was hard at work matching these two together for some time before they realised it themselves. Steph’s brother is married to Keith’s sister Katherine (I know, right?!) and it was on Katherine’s hen night that she realised how well suited Steph (her soon to be sister-in-law) and her brother Keith were. Their cousin Amy went so far as to phone Keith and tell him that she was sitting next to his future wife. Katherine then showed Steph a photo of her brother but to throw a spanner in the works, Steph proclaimed that he wasn’t her type. Various family members made several attempts to get these two together, even Keith’s dad told him and his brother how wonderful he thought Steph was and if one of his sons didn’t snap her up there would be trouble. If two people are truly meant to be together then they will be – at least cupid didn’t give up hope. That New Year’s Eve, Steph and Keith finally realised the connection between them and that’s where the magic began.

Keith packed his bags and left his home, his job and his family in Northern Ireland and moved to London to be with Steph where they embarked on many exciting adventures together. Three years later and they’ve embarked on the most exciting adventure of them all. The photo below was taken by Keith and it marks the beginning of the next chapter.

We had so much fun photographing this beautiful wedding which took place at The Grand Hotel, Leas, Folkestone, followed by a wedding reception at Elham Village Hall. Elham is a quaint little village and the village hall was surrounded by fields and hills, which created a wonderful setting.

I’ve created a little wedding website for Steph and Keith to showcase their engagement and wedding photos, making it easier to show family and friends. I think this is very cool and is especially handy when your wedding guests are scattered far and wide… at this wedding alone there were guests from London, Ireland, Chile and Australia. Now how can Steph and Keith be expected to pass their wedding album that far around the planet? Click on the screen shot below to be taken to their wedding website where you will see a few teaser shots. More photos to follow once Steph and Keith are back from their honeymoon. Hope you both have a great time and thank you again for inviting us to share your day.

Kathryn x

If you would like to discuss your Folkestone Wedding Photography please feel free to call on 01489 783047 or email info@kathrynandrewsphotography.com

If you liked this wedding, you may also be interested in Katy and Jim’s seaside wedding which was also photographed in Folkestone.

Wedding Photography also available in Southampton, Hampshire and the wider UK. PLease visit www.kathrynandrewsphotography.com for further details.

Being a wedding photographer, Kathryn knows a fair bit about weddings and proposals and often when I come home from work she’ll have some article or video she wants to share with me. If it’s a proposal, it’s usually an over elaborate event either getting an entire tube carriage to sing or hiring out a cinema and doing a movie declaring their love. So no pressure then when it comes to proposing to someone in the industry.

I’ve wanted to propose to Kathryn for a long time. I thought of everything and anything for the proposal, I looked into hot air balloon rides, trips to Paris, trips to Ireland where Kathryn’s family are from, I thought of taking her to London for a show or a boat ride on a river but none of my ideas felt special enough. Back in December we booked a holiday to Oludeniz in Turkey for the following April. Oludeniz has the most photographed beach in Europe and Kathryn loves the water so I thought this would be the ideal opportunity.

In February I bought the ring. Kathryn had dropped several hints of the type she likes and I hoped the one I finally bought was just as she wished for. I’m terrible at keeping a secret and several times in those weeks leading up to the holiday, I almost blurted out that I had a ring and wanted to propose but realised that the holiday had to be the time to do it.  Suddenly, the wind dropped out of my sails. Kathryn has a very close knit family and one week before we’re due to go away, Kathryn’s cousin Jess was proposed to by her boyfriend Alex who was soon to be deployed to Afghanistan. While I was really pleased for them, I thought that if I now proposed to Kathryn a week later, I would be raining on their parade. I felt awkward about proposing now but decided to take the ring on holiday anyway. I’d been building up for this moment and didn’t want to miss this opportunity.

The apartment we had on holiday was lovely but as with most holiday accommodation, the rooms aren’t massive. I wondered how I was going to hide a ring in our small apartment for any sort of time and more to the point, how was I going to get it on the plane without Kathryn knowing? I decided the safest place to hide it was in one of the camera lens bags… Kathryn likes me to feel needed and carrying her camera equipment is my responsibility so she was unlikely to look in there without me knowing. Once at the hotel I was pleased to find a safety deposit box in our room so I told Kathryn not to worry about money on holiday, I would look after it all so with any luck, she would have no reason to look in there. I thought I’d been rumbled on more than one occasion but thankfully I made it to the final day of our holiday without Kathryn catching on.

We had the best time on holiday and it was really needed for both of us. There was just one last thing I needed to do to make it complete and I decided that Jess and Alex wouldn’t mind sharing the celebrations…at least I hoped they wouldn’t mind… I need to marry this girl…and I needed to ask her now. After breakfast on our last day, we decided some souvenir shopping was in order. I’d suggested that we eat down at the beach on our final night but decided I would take the ring down with us in the morning in case Kathryn didn’t want to come back that evening. I stuck the ring box in the left pocket of my shorts and made Kathryn walk on my right hand side so she wouldn’t notice the conspicuous bulge in my pocket. We then sat down and had a drink at this nice little bar on the beach that had egyptian like seats to relax on and Kathryn joked about being the wife of a Pharaoh in a past life. The conversation made this the perfect moment to propose and while it’s cheesy I’m sure it’s a line neither of us will ever forget. “Kathryn, I’m no Pharaoh but will you marry me” and that’s all I needed. No balloon ride or clip that had 200,000 hits on YouTube, just a simple, natural conversation with a woman that I adore. Of course, she said yes and we beamed ridiculous smiles for the rest of the day, accompanied by phrases such as, ‘Hello fiancee’, ‘shall we go to the pool fiancee’, ‘night night fiancee’ and so on… Two weeks later and I’m still chuffed to be able to call her my fiancee and here’s why…

When someone asks ‘why do you love me?’ it’s a really difficult question to answer, it’s easy to tell someone they’re lovely… generous… kind… loyal… honest… beautiful… caring… thoughtful and genuine (which, Kathryn, you are all of those things), but lots of people could be described in that way. The reasons I adore Kathryn are for the random songs she insists on singing for me in the car, the way she misses me when I’m at work, the way she shushes me when I say something she doesn’t want to hear, the way she hates when I drive fast even though she’s a faster driver than me, the way she listens to me rabbit on about work whether it be good or bad, the way she flares her nostrils when she disapproves of something, the way she frowns upon my clowning around and then two minutes later she’s pulling faces at me, the way she makes a point of telling me she’s hanging my pants on the washing line – she may even phone me to tell me this if I’m not there, the way she gasps and covers her face when I tell her how long we’ve been going out and that we’re buying a house together (Kathryn’s a bit of a commitment phobe), the way that she deals with my drunk moments (which aren’t very often) – rather than get annoyed when I’m drunk, she videos it so she can laugh at me the next morning. When we can’t be together she’ll phone me just to listen to my voice and usually ends up making random noises at me while she edits photos on her computer, I love the way she asks me to do stuff or makes out she doesn’t know how to do something just to make me feel useful, the way she expects me to know what she’s thinking no matter how random it is (I’m getting better at this) and, while I love all of the things about Kathryn, especially the way she makes me laugh, the one thing I love more than anything is that my fiancee, Kathryn, truly is my best friend in the whole world.

Love you Miss Andrews xx

Anyone who knows me well will know how much I love the beach and all things aquatic. I swear I was a mermaid in a former life. On the last day of our holiday we took a walk down to the beach to buy a few gifts for people at home. We were planning to have dinner at a beach front restaurant in Oludeniz called Buzz Beach Bar that evening. We’d eaten there during our first week and were very impressed with the location, the food and the service. Definitely 10/10. Keith said we’d go back there on our last day. So on our last day (although a little early – 10 am to be precise), we made our way down to the seafront. On the way I noticed a salon with fish pedicure tanks outside the front of their shop. They had only just unpacked them and the owner of the salon called us over. We were to be their first ever fish pedicure customers. It was quite amusing sitting at the side of the road with our feet being nibbled by tiny fish – it’s something I’ve been meaning to try for a while and I’m glad I did. After an extra long fish pedicure, we carried on walking down to the seafront.

We went in a few gift shops and Keith even bought me a couple of handmade vases for our new home that we’ll be moving into soon. It was about 11.30am by this point. It was already baking hot and Keith suggested having a drink on the beach. There was a small hut selling drinks and ice-creams with brightly coloured beanbags on the sand for customers to sit on. Keith sat on a bean bag while I perched myself on a lower seat which was shaded by umbrellas. After a short while, Keith asked if my seat was comfortable… there were no chair legs, it was literally a seat on the sand with a back to it, and it was covered in what I would describe as a patterned tapestry type of material. The pattern looked a bit Eqyptian. I felt very relaxed sat on the beach looking out to sea. It was quiet with a few people dotted here and there but there was nobody within ear shot. Being my usual daft self I explained to Keith that I liked sitting on these seats as opposed to the bean bags because they reminded me of the seats we had when I lived in Egypt and was married to an Egyptian Pharaoh. Yes, this is an elaborate story I made up there and then. Keith asked if this was a past life of mine and wondered how many other wives this Pharaoh had. “Just me.” I said with a smile. I looked out to sea and heard Keith say he was going to come and sit next to me on my seat. “Kathryn…I’m no Pharaoh,” I heard him say, “but will you marry me?” As I turned back to face Keith he pulled a small box out of his pocket. He opened it and inside was a beautiful diamond ring. “Will you marry me?” He asked again. Of course, I said yes! 

It turns out Keith had bought the ring back in February but knowing how much I love the beach, he decided to wait until we were on holiday before asking. He had kept the ring hidden away in the safety deposit box during our holiday… he seemed to take charge of the money on our holiday and I had no reason to want to go to the safety deposit box. It was actually quite nice letting a man take charge. Keith had planned to propose to me that evening at Buzz Beach Bar while we were having dinner but decided to take the ring with him to the beach in the morning just incase. With just the two of us sat on the beach and me talking about being married to an Egyptian Pharaoh (which I never have been by the way), Keith knew that was the perfect moment to propose and it couldn’t have been more perfect. We sat there for a while longer with huge grins on our faces while I stared at my ring as it glistened in the sun. We then strolled over to Buzz Beach Bar for a celebratory lunch instead of dinner 

Since the proposal my head has been racing with ideas for our wedding. I feel like a child inside! Expect to see more regular blog posts here as I delve deeper into the world of weddings. It really is interesting seeing things from the bride’s perspective. Right… I have to take some paperwork to our solicitor now or we won’t be moving house when we’re supposed to be. It’s all very exciting!! Oh, and if you’re a client of mine, don’t worry, I’ll inform you of our new address just as soon as we have a moving in date. Happy Monday people 

Just so you know… Keith really wasn’t up for posing for photos on holiday as he thought people were looking at him. Still, I managed to get a few shots cos really, he’d do anything for me

I think there’s a huge benefit to meeting couples before the wedding, visiting the wedding venue and sharing ideas about possible photo opportunities which is why I offer this service. Having an engagement shoot or pre wedding shoot as some call it, really helps my clients to relax in front of the camera and by the time the wedding day comes around we’ve built a rapport so it doesn’t feel as though I’m a stranger intruding on your big day.

Steph and Keith will be getting married in June at the Grand Hotel, Leas, followed by a wedding reception in Elham Village. All I can say is the surrounding countryside is just breathtaking and will provide a beautiful backdrop for their wedding photographs.

Here’s a few of my favourites from the engagement shoot…

If you’d like to enquire about your Folkestone Wedding Photography, Hampshire Wedding Photography or indeed a wedding in any other county, please feel free to email info@kathrynandrewsphotography.com or call me on 01489 78307. Don’t forget to visit the main website

I’ve produced two versions of this week’s image, one in colour and the other in black and white. I felt the colour version showed the graffiti off better but in reality, the area seemed quite depressing and dull and I feel that the black and white version represents that better. This image was captured using a Nikon D700 camera with a 35mm lens. In Lightroom I boosted the colours in the first version and in the second version I converted the image to black and white, increased the blacks and the clarity slightly and added grain.

I just want to say… on this occasion Keith was driving. Before we left for the morning’s shoot, he said he needed to get petrol. We drove past the petrol station … he decided to stop on the way back. We had enough petrol to get us to the shoot and back. Here’s what happened… we did the boudoir shoot and got all the way back to Southampton. We were in the red but Keith said it was fine. We had more than enough petrol to get home. So we’re driving around St Mary’s and the petrol guage indicates there’s 20 miles worth of fuel left. Suddenly it dropped to 10. We drove around the block and it dropped to 5. We decided we needed to find a petrol station pretty quickly but we wanted to get this shot and the light was fading fast. We got the shot and headed for the nearest petrol station… it was 3 minutes down the road… through a very undesirable area and across a very busy intersection. As we drove out of St Mary’s the petrol guage registered that we had 2 miles left. I didn’t believe that for one second. I knew it was lying. We drove towards the traffic lights at the intersection and the petrol guage flatlined. I kid you not. The numbers turned into a flat line. There were no miles left. I was practically wetting myself…. partly with laughter and partly from nerves. I panicked that I was going to have to get out and push the car across this very large intersection…. or that Keith would have to push while I steered. I sat in the passenger seat with my hand over my mouth and looking out the side window. I was slightly nervous at the upcoming tantrum I was about to witness from Keith and I was also finding it highly amusing. You know when you want to laugh out loud with uncontrollable laughter but you really know it’s best not to… that. The petrol station was just yards down the road… I could see it from where we were sat. Miraculously we rolled into the petrol station just before the car cut out. I haven’t felt that relieved in a long time. So here’s a tip… next time your petrol guage is in the red… it means stop at the nearest petrol station and fill up. I did try to explain that earlier in the day.

I hope you enjoyed reading about this week’s instalment of Ghetto Unfabulous. You can view the previous posts by clicking on the links below.

Kathryn Andrews Personal Photography Project: Ghetto Unfabulous Week 1

Kathryn Andrews Personal Photography Project: Ghetto Unfabulous Week 2