Elaine and Anthony where married in the Valley of 1000 Hills, Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. The venue looked over onto the hills, Bella Vista http://www.bellavista.co.za/ . We had a lot of fun with them doing the creative shoots. One on the day of the wedding and another longer shoot the next day, including dancing with traditional Zulu dancers!

Some kind words from the couple:
“We are very happy with the work that you both did, you made our day something to remember. We were both so nervous and you just knew how to relax us and we all had a lot of fun doing both the creative shoot on the day as well as the next day shoot. For both of us who are usually camera shy, we are very happy with the results. You guys know how to mix fun with professionalism, that’s for sure!”

In July of this year we photographed Sarah & Dan Leo’s wedding. Ben Pegna who played for the London Wasps rugby team with Dan Leo asked us to cover The Exposure Project 2008 auction event. The proceeds from the auction would be going towards the charity Right To Play. Right To Play is an international humanitarian organization that uses sport and play programs to improve health, develop life skills, and foster peace for children and communities in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the world. The charity is supported by an international team of top athletes from over 40 different countries. To read more about the charity please visit www.righttoplay.com

Throughout 2008, a number of the charity’s athlete ambassadors, including the UK’s number one tennis champion Andy Murray, Olympic gold Medalist Tim Brabants and London Wasps and Somoan International Rugby player Dan Leo, have been taking part in the Exposure Project and capturing photographs of their year in sport to give people and exclusive  and rare glimpse into the lives of top class athletes at high profile events. A selection of the photographs where auctioned off of the night but there are still prints available to purchase from the website. To read more about The Exposure Project visit www.theexposureproject2008.com

Her are a few shots from the evening:

Tim Brabants, Olympic gold medallist and Ben Ryan, England Rugby Union Sevens head coach and England srum half coach.

Sebastien Foucan, one of the founders of free running. He featured in the Jump London and Jump Britain documentaries and has most famously starred in the the opening sequence of the James Bond film, Casino Royale.

TV Presenter, Kirsty Gallagher and Rugby Player, Paul Sampson pose with Sebastien Foucan after purchasing one of his shots during the auction. Chemmy Alcott, British No. 1 alpine skier, shows off one of her shots.

Liz Yelling, Team GB, sells off one of her photographs. Anne Keothavong is Britain’s number ome female tennis player.

Andy Murray was unable to attend the event and his shot was shown off by his girlfriend, Kim Sears. Dan Leo who plays internationally for Samoa and for the London Wasps rugby team.

One of our Surrey weddings has been featured as a “Real Wedding” in Your Surrey Wedding magazine’s November / December issue. This was Anthony and Lorena’s wedding held in Woking, Surrey at a Catholic Church called St Dunstan’s. The reception was held on a riverboat along the Thames called Le Bateaux. Due to the coach breaking down the wedding day was given a bit of a twist and the entire wedding party had to jump aboard the train and head up to London… hence the title “The Love Train”.

I was asked to photograph this wedding with the lovely, Sarah Owen. Usually Sarah shoots solo but had a special request from the couple for two photographers due to the fact that there would be 200 guests at the ceremony and a further 100 for the evening reception. It made a nice change for me to cover the groom’s preparations as usually I cover the bridal prep and Craig covers the groom. In this case Sara went over to the bride and I was at the groom’s house. The ceremony was held at Our Lady of Grace and St. Edwards Church on Chiswick High Street. The reception to follow was at the Woodlands Park Hotel, Cobham in Surrey. In the evening the couple had organised a surprise for all the guests - a Casino!

Yin & Jeremy’s wedding was a bringing together of two cultures. Yin is Chinese and Jeremy is originally from France. It was wonderful to see the mixing of these traditions. The ceremony was held at the beautiful Miskin Manor country house just outside Cardiff where a traditional western wedding ceremony was held. A Chinese banquette was laid out by the Riverside Cantonese and finally the evening reception was held in central Cardiff at The Angel Hotel . It was a very long day but it would have to be in order to fit in two wedding traditions!

We have been added to the official Trash The Dress website for Europe. It is a great honor to be associated with such talented photographers. Our wedding couples are loving the next day shoots that we offer. Once the stresses of the actual wedding day are over it means that we can achieve highly creative shots of the bride and groom the day after the wedding.

Our article and images can be viewed on:
www.trashthedress.eu

In July 2008 our Shoot The Dress / Trash The Dress creative wedding photography images where featured in Professional Photographer Magazine UK. We where interviewed over the phone and a number of our shots where chosen to be printed in the July issue and one for the Next Month page in the June 2008 issue.

Our highly creative shots of the Bride in her wedding dress can take place the day after the wedding. This usually fits nicely with destination weddings. We can also do this for our UK couples. During a recent wedding in Cyprus both the Bride and Groom took part and they absolutely loved it! The point of our shoots is not to go out to trash the dress necessarily and often they are ok after a dry clean. What we are doing is creating beautiful, artistic shots and that is the main aim.

Photography by Chanelle Segerius-Bruce

Photography by Craig Bruce (2 images). The black and white shot is by Andy Chittock

Photography by Chanelle Segerius-Bruce

Although we are based in Surrey we do travel to all parts of the UK and this time we where taken up to Norfolk. Congratulations to Sarah and Dan who had their wedding in Norwich on the 19th of July. It was an amazing wedding to photograph with the bringing together of two different cultures. The jazz band was fantastic at the wedding reception and we ended up staying until midnight capturing the antics of the guests dancing to the funky music!

Here are a selection of images from the destination wedding that we photographed in Pafos, Cyprus at the beginning of this month. The ceremony and reception where held at the Atlantida Restaurant in Pafos. The couple stayed at the Laura Beach Hotel in Pafos. Destination wedding photography is what we absolutely love to do as it combines our passion of travel and professional wedding photography. Our combination of documentary style wedding photojournalism and highly creative wedding photography has resulted in some fantastic shots for Helen & Tony.

We arrived in a rather warm Cyprus on Monday at midnight and the temperature was a balmy 27 degrees. Due to the fact that his was a British colony they drive on the left and this makes hiring a car the perfect solution to getting around. On Tuesday evening we met with the future Bride and Groom for the first time, so far we had only spoken over the phone as they live up in the north of England and we are located down south in Surrey.  45 of their friends and family have also flown out from the UK to share in their special day. They are a very relaxed, fun and easy going couple so this destination suites them perfectly. The wedding went without a hitch on Friday 04 July. The ceremony took place on a grassy patch leading onto a sandy beach. The bridal party consisted of 2 bridesmaids, the best man, 2 page boys and a flower girl. The flowers where tropical, multi-coloured bunches and the dresses where a lovely deep purple colour. The bride looked beautiful in a strapless A-line ivory dress with train and corset at the back by Berketex Bride. On Thursday we had been to the wedding venue to scout out locations for the creative shoot. We found some rocky areas, bright flowers and an old shed that made for something a bit different from the normal bride and groom standing on the beach shots. All in all a wonderful day was had by all.

Shoot The Dress - later this evening at around 6pm we will be meeting up with the couple once again for a creative shoot the dress session. There are some stunning locations near their hotel and the water is lovely and warm, so I am sure we will have no problem coaxing the newly weds into the water! We will be back in the UK from Tuesday so keep an eye on the blog for pictures.