Joanna and Allen 16 April 2011

Beautiful weather predominated on Saturday 16th April for the wedding of Joanne and Allen. I had the honour of working with one of my favourite wedding photographers Marta Demartini from Genoa. Marta's work is exceptional and she is one of those people who inspires me to do better each time I take the camera out. If ever I get a bit complacent, all I have to do is look at her outstanding work and it prompts me to try harder next time.

Our lovely bride Joanne is a school teacher so the two of them are having a short honeymoon break in Cornwall over the Easter holidays and then going to the USA during the school summer holidays. If the current weather keeps up for them, Cornwall will be beautiful (they know this already of course). I'm not sure that Cornish pasties or clotted cream will be their top priority, but I'd welcome either if you have room in your suitcase folks.

The fantastic bridesmaids dresses were all hand made by Joanne's mum Joan. Now that's what I call dedication and creativity! I have difficulty in sewing on a button so am always impressed by people who can put things like this together (I'm rubbish at DIY as well, but that's probably too much information sorry).

This was my 393rd wedding shoot and like most of the others, it came from a referral. Avid readers of our blog will possibly recognise Keri (last bridesmaid on right above) whose wedding we covered last year. After over 30 years of taking wedding images, word of mouth is still tops for getting the next event on our books. With so many people now using on-line peer reviews before buying anything, the method of recommendation may have changed, but it's still a recommendation from happy customers that count for most consumers. Clearly no service provider is going to tell clients "Our limousines keep breaking down. We turn up late frequently" or "We're really rubbish at catering and our hotel rooms smell of cats" etc, so it's really important for our potential brides and grooms to check out what the feedback is from real clients. Although there's a selection of quotes on the TPS web site "Testimonials" page (taken as verbatim quotes from people we've photographed) anyone can write a good CV that's economical with the truth. Thankfully, we have 30 year's worth of customers you can ask directly if you doubt our integrity.

This blog always has a short bit of prose and a handful of images from the event on display. For a much larger selection, go to the TPS Website page for Joanne and Allen.

We've been fully booked for April this year for some time now. Two more consecutive Saturdays to go before a bit of a break. Thankfully I love what I get to do with a camera. The best thing about the job is the people - vitally important of course when pretty much all I take photographs of is human beings. Saturday's crowd were great fun, even though jumping for joy wasn't their most finely honed skill. We wish Joanne and Allen a long, beautiful and happy union together. A pretty easy wish if what we witnessed on Saturday is anything to go by.