Ashton Photography

Donna & Matt ‘s Wedding At Gibbon Bridge

On Friday we photographed the wedding of Donna & Matt who had a fantastic day at Gibbon Bridge Hotel.

This was our first wedding at Gibbon Bridge this year and we were amazed to find how much the venue has changed. There is now a stunning new garden room and Donna and Matt were the first couple to get married in the new extension. Gibbon Bridge has been a favourite of Ashton Photography for many years, but now its better than ever, superb location and a great team !!

We had a great day with fantastic weather and some great people to photograph. The venue looked fantastic with flowers designed along a Japanese theme by the very talented Jane & Jason of Flower Design

The superb wedding cake decoration was created by Donna’s mum, a very talented lady.

Here are a few of our favourite images from the day, hope you enjoy them.

We photographed the speeches, which is always a great time for candid shots and this is a classic example, I love this image, it just sums up this Mums feelings and the love just jumps out at you……. images like this just make wedding photography such a pleasure.

To close this post here are two of our great friends and fellow wedding professionals Jane and Jason, from Flower Design…. one for the scrap book guys and thanks for doing such a great job, a pleasure to work with you again!!

Helen & Gary’s Wedding At Samlesbury Hall

Another classic wedding on Saturday, this time it was the turn of Helen and Gary at the superb Samlesbury Hall
Near Preston in lancashire.

The Hall looked fantastic on Saturday, despite some rain showers in fact its one of those few places that has so many great locations for photographs rain never causes a problem. Despite the weather we managed to get most photography done outside which was a real bonus.

This was a really nice classic and elegant wedding in a superb venue, what more can a wedding photographer ask.

Gary is the proud owner of a gleaming Lotus sports car, which seemed to play a very significant part in the days proceedings, standing proudly outside the main enterance

Helen’s grandad did a fantastic reading from ”The Owl & The Pussy Cat” during the wedding service which was held in the small chapel.

This is the scene awaiting the guests as they went in for the wedding breakfast. The Hall looked stunning. The event team had done a fantastic job in creating such a warm and friendly reception for everyone.

It was then time for a quick and efficient turn round in preperation for a very livley and well rehersed first dance.

Both Stephanie and myself had a great time. Hope you like this small selection of pictures. For any bride and grooms out there, looking for a superb wedding venue, you really should take a look at Samlesbury Hall.

More Donna & Oliver

Just a few more images of the Donna & Oliver at Beeston Manor
last Saturday. These are hot off the press having just gone through post production, so sorry for the split post.

Emma and Gavin’s Wedding At The Grand, Lytham

Every once and a while you get to really enjoy a wedding shoot. All weddings are very different but some just shine through. The thing that makes weddings special for me is emotion and Emma and Gav’s wedding emotion just overflowed.

The day was a photographers dream with a stunning bride and groom in a fantastic location with great guests. Its been some time since we worked at the Grand Hotel in Lytham, in fact since we were last there the Hotel has been given a multi million pound revamp and boy has it made a difference. From a photography point of view this place simply rocks!!!

Here is a link to the Grand Hotel

Here in no particular order are a few of our images from the day. For the photographer reading the blog, there was no fancy flash stuff, just simple daylight and the D3s at last a camera which lets me leave the flash gun at home. This wedding was a little different to our normal wedding coverage. Whilst we did a lot of reportage photography, we also spent a lot of time with the bride and groom capturing available light portraits using interior locations around the hotel. So a bit of a change for us but a very enjoyable one!!!

The Great Hall At Mains Looking Fantastic

The Great Hall at Mains, which without doubt is one of Lancashire’s most prolific wedding venues, was looking the best I have ever seen for Joe and Mellissa’s wedding a few weeks ago.

Mellissa has fantastic attention to detail and with the help of the great wedding team at the Great Hall they produced a stunning theme for the wedding. As you can imagine we see a lot of wedding venues, but this was stunning. Here are a few images from the day but I will leave it to The Great hall’s blog to give all you brides the more important wedding information. So great venue, Stunning bride and groom and fantastic weather on the day all combined to produce one of the nicest weddings we have seen for some time. Here is a link to the Great Hall Blog

We Made The Press

I went across to Tesco today for some fuel only to be greeted by the petrol station attendant saying” I just read about you in the paper” Not my normal greeting so here is the article in question.

The local newspaper ran a short article on our business today. They were interested in our nomination for the Wedding Photographer of the year award, the winner of the award will be announced on Friday.

It was nice to see our business featured and we are all keeping our fingers crossed for the results on Friday.

Angela & Richard Peckforton Castle

Hi its Stephanie here for a change. Having known Angela my hair dresser for over three years we were delighted to be asked to photograph her fairytale wedding to Richard at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire.

Angela had her dream day at a great location with bright blue skies and a six foot long wedding cake. Her gown, was amazing with a bodice of swarovski crystal and she looked simple stunning.

Here are a few images from the day.

We spent some time with Angela and Richard using the new Quadra lights to capture the amazing architecture of the castle.

Liverpool City Wedding

I photographed Kerry and Matthew’s wedding which was held at Liverpool Town Hall without Stephanie who was covering another wedding at Gibbon Bridge.

Having never photographed Liverpool Town Hall before I really enjoyed my day in Liverpool. The architecture in Liverpool is stunning and the town hall is a real photographers paradise.
Another rare treat was having a fairly long period of time with the bride and groom who had planned the day to perfection it just ran like clock work.

Here is a small selection of images from the day. It goes to show that with good planning you can cover a lot of ground in a city centre wedding and we managed a few great locations and landmarks so I needed to travel light. No big lighting gear or very long lenses the focus was on portability so for lighting I used the superb Nikon SB900 which did just great.

The phone box images are rather special as this was the very phone box were Matthew prposed… It was a great moment to share with then when we stopped by to do those shots.

I hope you enjoy the images and Matthew I hope you enjoy your wedding present !!

Gibbon Bridge Wedding Photography

This year we have had some great weddings and when we photographed Eleanor and Peter at Gibbon Bridge we had a great time. It is so rewarding to be present at such a nice warm and friendly family wedding. The special moments between bride and groom are of course what every photographer looks for but its also great when you see such love between the parents and their children.

Seeing Eleanor spend those last few moments with her dad before the wedding and the walk out in the stunning gardens at Gibbon Bridge to meet Peter are the real special moments that make our job so rewarding. Most people simply dont witness these emotions we are very lucky.

This wedding really was a pleasure to work on and thanks to everybody for making us feel so welcome. If you are interested in holding your wedding out side in a great location you can’t really beat Gibbon Bridge.

One other aspect of this wedding that really did blow me away was the attention to detail Eleanor and her Mum had lavished on the day. The flowers which were supplied by Emma Ashworth from Rossendale were stunning and possibly the best I have seen for some time. The venue looked fantastic and boy was it warm !!!!

Three Days In Yorkshire

We spent a very pleasant three days working in Yorkshire covering an Sikh wedding. I have posted a few images here but due to the nature of our clients work we have been asked not to post any actual images of them or their guest. These are just to give a flavour of what we have been doing and show the fantastic canvas we had to work with.

This was our first Sikh wedding and we really enjoyed the experience and the food!!

The actual wedding took place in Sheffield followed by a new reception venue for us, Hodsock Priory http://www.hodsockpriory.com/

Hodsock is stunning and we loved the place. Superb grounds and a simply fantastic architecture. Check out their web site, its really interesting.

From a photography point of view we had a ball for three full days and came away with some great images. The weather was fantastic on all three days which made things so much more pleasant for everyone.

The year continues to keep nice and busy and after a rare weekend off we are ready for the busy months of July and August. Both Stephanie and myself have some training clients booked in for July and we are really looking foreward to working with some really great new delegates. Due to the high volume of weddings this year we have not yet organised any group training days however, we have some planned later in the year. Instead we are concentrating on bespoke one 2 one sessions. So if you are interested in learning more about any aspect of photography or need help with your photography business please do contact us directly or via our training website http://www.ashtonphotography.co.uk/main.asp?section=training

Thats all for now off to meet some clients for a pre wedding shoot and it looks nice and sunny out there!!