You may well ask what do professional wedding photographers in Essex do when they are not photographing weddings in Essex? In my case the answer - Fly fish for Trout at a secluded lake near Chelmsford with their good friend Paul http://www.enfora.com/ and my trusty hound http://www.flatcoated-retriever-society.org/ (Paul is his DogFather). Paul being a novice at fly fishing (although he would dispute this) relies very heavily on his DogSon for guidance.
Here we see the safe removal of a fly by Paul whilst his DogSon holds the rod. For the technically minded I was using a Hardy Gem Smuggler 5wt made by the House of Hardy in Alnwick Northumberland http://www.hardygreys.com/

Despite all of the threats, the weather remained fine on Saturday when I photographed Jane and Edwards' wedding at St Mary Magdalene Church Whetstone. The marriage ceremony was performed by Monsignor John Barry, Edwards' Uncle, who flew in from the United States of America for this very special occasion.

A spectacular finale to the day was provided by a display of World Champion Irish dancing.

As any gun dog will tell you it takes a lot of patience and training to get their owner "Just Right". Above we see Fudge - a 9 mth old Cocker in the early stages of training his owner John Farley of the Sayes Park Shooting School http://www.shootingcoachuk.com/. I am led to believe that John shows promise.

Your Dreams CourtOnCamera - Professional Wedding Photography for Essex, Herts Cambs and beyond.

My advert for the next edition af An Essex Wedding http://www.anessexwedding.co.uk/ will change to the above. The image was taken at Ickworth House. The advert also carried the logo of the two professional organisations that I belong to, namely the Master Photographers Association (MPA) http://www.thempa.com/ and the British Institute of Professional Photographers (BIPP) http://www.bipp.com/.

This morning I met up with Fiona and Daniel for their pre-wedding shoot and planning meeting. They are getting married at Greensted Church near Ongar in May. The church dates back to 654 AD and is on record as being the oldest wooden church in the world.

I took along my advertising manager Tom Flatcoat (who was at a bit of a loose end) and introduced him to Fiona and Daniel - fortunately they hit it off straight away despite his somewhat youthfull and over enthusiastic nature.

Fiona and Daniel had to run to the church to avoid being late for the shoot - they just made it on time.

For the last seven days I have taken a break from photographing weddings in Essex, donned my waders and ventured upto bonny Scotland in pursuit of Salmon (yes that is me executing a Spey cast). The river Tummel at Pichlochry (the fastest flowing river in Scotland) was the scene of my adventure. Unfortunately I forgot to tell the Salmon that I was coming, they appear to have gone on holiday too!

Fortunately where I was staying was but 1 mile from the Edradour distillery (the smallest in Scotland) and about 1.5 mile in the other direction to Moulan (having the oldest Pub in Scotland and a brewery to boot).

On Saturday I had the pleasure of photographing Jenny and James' wedding at Layer Marney Tower near Colchester in Essex. Layer Marney is a Tudor Palace set in beautiful parkland and gardens dating back to 1520. The Farm at Layer Marney Tower is a livestock farm and Jennie managed to find in the mediaeval barn a number of Norfolk Horn sheep lambs. http://www.layermarneytower.co.uk/

The Toastmaster, my good friend Richard Palmer was on hand throughout Jenny and James' truly special day. http://www.thetoastmaster.co.uk/

Catering was provided by Bouquet Garni. http://www.bouquetgarni.co.uk/