Hanging in the sunshine, a few little pieces to make your heart flutter…

This is the work of a wonderful new lingerie designer. Her choice of the softest fabrics, the prettiest lace and the most shimmery silks all add up to a heady mix.

When I saw these pieces, hanging forlornly on a coat stand at the recent Harrogate Wedding Lounge launch party, I couldn’t believe my eyes. They are so beautiful.

Perfect for your wedding day, for pottering around in on the morning of your wedding, or for adding to your wedding trousseau, to enjoy on honeymoon.

i may just have to hoover in the wrap, it would certainly make the household chores a little more glamorous!

I’m delighted to say I’ll be working with the incredibly talented designer of this collection in the coming weeks. We have a photo shoot planned designed to showcase all this loveliness.

In the meantime if you’d like to know more about her and even order a piece or two, just drop me an email and I’ll be happy to share this undiscovered secret…

cat@cathepplephotography.com

xXx

Springtime in North Yorkshire.

Springtime at Goldsborough hall.

Love blossoms amongst the grandeur and splendour of the landscape.

Jenny and Paul’s wedding day was an absolutely joyous, beautiful and elegant affair. All against the backdrop of a village church, a royal stately home and the prettiest gardens.

Just dreamy…

Jenny wore a divine lace gown from Pronovias, with her own touches added. She also was adorned with an incredible lace edged veil which just went on and on and on….Paul looked slick and suave, and literally swept his bride off her feet. Sooooo romantic.

The rain stayed away all day, a miracle after the days and days of rain in the run up to the big day. Jenny and her father were able to make the short walk from Goldsborough hall to the church for a beautiful, moving ceremony. The incredible flowers were created by Blush Bespoke flowers. They were so pretty.

One of my favourite images of a truly stunning bride. Jenny is one of the sweetest, loveliest brides I’ve ever met.

This wedding was just full of love and giggles. The atmosphere was fabulous, making it a very special day.

Oh just * swoon* right? It’s all too beautiful for words.

I can’t wait to show the couple the full set of images. They are utterly breathtaking.

My love and congratulations to the new Mr and Mrs Balfour. You make a gorgeous couple, and seem made for each other. Photographing your wedding day was such an honour. Thank you for trusting me.

My sincere thanks also to Jess Petrie for assisting me on the day. You worked very hard and never stopped smiling. My genuine thanks.

More from this glorious springtime wedding once the happy couple have had their private viewing.

xXx

How was your week? A tad damp no doubt? Did it actually ever stop raining?

I always love hearing the sound of my email ” ping” and this week I’ve had lots of new enquiries, some for this summer and plenty for 2013 weddings now too. Our gorgeous online brochure is available to be sent out by email to anyone interested in my services, so just drop me a line if you’d like your copy.

For those already booked with me, many are planning their engagement shoots for the coming weeks. It’s a gorgeous time of year, with bluebells and cherry blossom, and hopefully some sunshine.

From the beach, to the places they used to date, there’s lots of gorgeous shoots coming up for my wonderful couples.

Each shoot is an individual as my couples are, thats the beauty of these. I just LOVE engagement shoots. I don’t call them my Romance shoots for nothing…

On another exciting development, I’ve been working closely with one of my couples, Alice and Paul for their engagement shoot in PARIS ! This requires very careful preparation, so I’ve been immersed in all things French and chic this week- which hasn’t been too difficult to endure at all.

If you love looking through my work, you’ll enjoy some wonderful features we’ve had published this week on several wedding blogs. It’s always an honour to have my work chosen to feature and I’m always so thrilled for my couples when their weddings or engagement shoots make the cut.

Jenny and Pauls beach romance shoot was featured on Pocketful of Dreams;

The very lovely b.Loved wedding blog ran a piece about my new boudoir service…

And my all time favourite wedding blog Love My Dress, featured a gorgeous inspiring shoot I photographed and helped style. 

And lovely news for my Bride and Groom Richard and Kirsteen - their wedding is inspiring lots of other couples, having been featured over on Pocketful of Dreams.

It’s all really rather exciting.

My sincere gratitude to all the blogs who have featured my work.

If you are interested in my services for your wedding, or other shoots please do drop me an email; cat@cathepplephotography.com or just pick up the phone and let’s have a chat.

And if anyone has any top tips for Paris I’d absolutely LOVE to hear from you.

Have a lovely weekend.

XxX

Sophia Rose was just 8 weeks old when I met her.

She’s utterly gorgeous. She giggles and smiles brightly as soon as you chat to her. It’s the cutest.

All newborn shoots are special to me. It’s such an honour to be asked to photograph a new family member and share a little time with a newly made family.

But Sophia was doubly precious, because I already knew her mummy and daddy, having photographed their wedding celebrations at Harvey Nichols in Leeds some time before.

The couple had married secretly abroad ( how romantic is that?!) and returned home to a party with family and friends. I always remember it as a really funny lovely evening, full of happiness and excitement.

So it was SO wonderful to receive an email from Becky telling me they had become parents. Cue a photo shoot with the very beautiful Sophia Rose.

I’m not ashamed to say I was a bit teary editing these images. Sophia has wonderful parents, and it’s an honour to know them all.

Isn’t she utterly adorable? She is just so totally beautiful.

My love to Becky, Richard and Sophia. It’s an absolute joy to know you all. Thank you for asking me to record these memories for you. I wish you all much joy and peace as your new bundle of joy grows and changes. I know all too well how it will completely change your life and bring such happiness.

xXx

We don’t do this very often, in fact rarely.

But it’s Spring which always brings the promise of new things, good things.

So to celebrate, here is a very special offer from us .

Be quick, this offer only lasts until 30th April, less than 2 weeks..

If you were considering booking any of our shoots, now is a good time to do it. Spring is sprung.

Take 2 ballerinas, some of the most incredible wedding gowns you can imagine and a team of people passionate about inspiring brides… and these are the results.

The dresses above are created by the incredibly talented Claire Pettibone and I can’t begin to tell you how much I adore her gowns. For me, shooting them with movement and energy was so important.

Chloe Curry from The White Room in Sheffield shared my vision for these beautiful pieces of art, and together we created this inspiring and ethereal shoot. You can see PART ONE HERE.

We divided the shoot into two colour palette tones, apricot and steel which you see here. These images are cooler, more silver and blue toned, dramatic and chic.

Chloe also wanted to show off some Jenny Packham gowns- beyond glamorous in style, these seemed to fit well with the icy looks of steel.

Once again, using the talents of our ballerinas, we used movement and poise to showcase the gowns.

I love the feel of this set. So elegant and serene, just perfect for a glamorous bride on her big day.

An incredibly talented team put these looks together for you, if you’d like to try on the Pettibone or Packham dresses, Chloe has a divine collection in stock at her boutique – I dare you not to fall in love…

For incredible feather and lace headpieces then House of Istria is the place to go. They supplied some of the headpieces you see in PART ONE of the shoot. I will forever be in love with the feather and lace headpiece.

For the sparkles and headband seen in this set of images, look no further than DC Bouquets, the very talented Debbie Carlisle created the pieces for our shoot. Perfect glitz for a sparkle bride.

The make up and hair brief was to avoid anything typically bridal. To be inspiring and creative and indulge brides in something a little more fashion led. Ashely Tyrrell had the vision to translate that brief with some breath taking make up. It’s sublime. And the very talented Dani Ingerosso from Wigs and Warpaint  took her own ideas for hairstyles and came up with some rather spectacular.

Finally the flowers, beautifully designed around the gowns, were the work of Campbells Flowers a perfect addition to the simplicity of the shoot.

My deepest gratitude to everyone involved especially our wonderfully beautiful model ( a ballerina who has never modelled before ) the radiant and elegant Abbie Cullen.

Chloe and I have further plans to inspire brides in the coming weeks, these looks can be yours if you dare to follow your dreams…..

Some months ago an exciting email arrived from South Africa.

That email led to yesterday, a beautiful sunny wedding in Essex, the marriage of Tara and Jamie.

Its always an honour to be asked to photograph anyone’s wedding. I know how important that decision is to a couple, but it was more than a little humbling to be asked to shoot a photographer’s daughter’s big day.

Gary Henwood-Fox is a photographer out in South Africa. He contacted me to ask if I might be free to photograph his daughters wedding, having seen my work on twitter, and the relationship grew from there. I felt incredibly honoured to be asked, and yesterday, I finally met Gary, as of course he was father of the bride.

Tara and Jamie had the most amazing day. Thick fog soon dispersed leaving gorgeous soft spring sunshine and that meant guests were able to spill out onto the manicured lawns and enjoyed champagne in the lovely warmth.

Tara and Jamie were so calm, collected and happy, just as they were on their engagement shoot together. Tara had worked for months on all the planning, and the results were beautiful.

Tara’s rather gorgeous shoes were a marvellous find in Faith- they were just fantastic! And I have to give a huge round of applause to Tara for being SO brave and allowing me to take her gown outside and hang it from a gorgeous ornate flower hook ! I know she agrees it was worth it for the shots!

After the ceremony, Friern Manor encourage couples to have photographs taken straight away, and we spent a few minutes exploring the breath-taking grounds together, to create some beautiful images together.

*Sigh* Tara and Jamie are just too gorgeous for words….

Such a wonderful day.

I’ll blog far more from this gorgeous wedding after the couple have enjoyed their private viewing of images.

But for now, I’ll leave you with this photograph- for me, one of the defining images of the day, the moment Gary saw his daughter in her wedding gown for the first time.

I can’t help but fight back the tears when I see this. Memories like these are beyond precious.

My love and all good wishes to Tara and Jamie, thank you for being such fun to work with,enjoy your honeymoon.

My sincere thanks to Friern Manor for looking after us at every stage and the delicious food.

And of course my sincere and heartfelt thanks to Gary for putting his trust in me, and allowing me to capture one of the most precious days of his family’s life. I hope I did you proud.

xXx

I’ve fallen madly in love. Head over heels, totally and completely. With a collection of gowns. Claire Pettibone gowns to be precise.

When I met Chloe Curry from The White Room in Sheffield and saw her collection of incredible bridal gowns I knew we had to work together. Chloe has an understanding of how women want to look on their big day, she understands that not all brides share the same idea of what a bride should look like, and many want a fashion inspired look rather than a traditional bridal image.

So we created a shoot to show how Chloe’s styling and my photography can create that look.

This is part one. We divided the shoot into 2 sections, 2 key looks. These images capture the apricot hues of warm ivory, soft skin and rich colourings.

For the most part the gowns are Claire Pettibone, but we also used a few from the exquisite collection from Jenny Packham, another of my favourite designers.

From the juliet cap veil, to the incredible feather and lace head dress the styling for this shoot shows you what can be achieved if you dare to dream, dare to be braver.

We hope you love them, for this is only the beginning of a collaboration which we hope will continue to offer something a little different to inspire you. We have plans for an art gallery exhibition soon, and some other very exciting projects designed around brides to be looking for something beyond the traditional. This shoot launched a thousand ideas…

In part two, I’ll share the images inspired by the icy coldness of steel. A very different feel but equally as swoon worthy.

An incredible team helped create these looks for you. My sincere thanks to each of them for their time, effort and energy. They are;

Model; Sophie Judd

Make up; Ashley Tyrrell

Hair; Wigs and Warpaint

Flowers; Campbells flowers

Headwear; House of Istria  and DCBouquets

Such talented people to work with, and of course my love and thanks to Chloe Curry from The White Room for running with this idea and creating magic.

xXx

Later this evening I am finally sharing the images from a rather wonderful and creative shoot I worked on last month with The White Room in Sheffield and a wonderful team of artists. We will sit down together and review the images.

It’s taken some time to chose which ones to work on, edit them and create 2 stunning collections of photographs. We’ve divided the images into 2 – some with an icy feel, some with an apricot tone… the reasons for this will become clear when I blog the full set for you.

The whole purpose of the shoot has been to inspire brides to be. So for now, without giving too much away, here is one shot from the icy collection….

The incredible make up was by Ashley Tyrrell  in case you are dying to book someone so talented!

More very soon…

OK, it wasn’t really winter, it was today- March 18th, technically spring. But let’s face it, even in our springtime we hardly ever see get to bask in such wonderfully sunny, almost balmy days. Looking down my lenses I honestly kept thinking I’d mistaken the north east of England for California at times. It was just incredible light.

Jenny and Paul struck gold today – they chose the breath- takingly gorgeous Runswick bay for their romance shoot A place very close to their hearts, and we all kept our fingers crossed the weather would be kind enough to allow us to enjoy the exceptional beauty of the place for just enough time for the shoot.

We needn’t have worried for a moment. it really was the most gorgeous weather. The sun beat down all day. Golden rays just bathed us with soft, warm light making us happy and cheerful and convincing us we’d stepped into summer. Wonderful.

Here are a couple of shots from our adventures together. I’ll share more once the couple have enjoyed their private viewing of the images. There are SO many to choose from I’m not sure how I’m going to choose which ones to edit. All that gorgeous sunlight caressing the landscape… swoon.

Jenny and Paul, thank you for the fabulous idea of the beach, for sharing your special place with me, and for bravely paddling in the freezing sea all in the name of art!

XxX