Lomax wedding

I'm taking a break from editing to share just a few pictures from Sally and Adrian's wedding. :)

They got married back in August, and have been VERY patient (in fact they've been model clients) with me whilst I've been ill. I was worried at one point that I wasn't even going to be able to shoot the wedding!! Thank goodness for Gary, who drove me around and did everything he could to make the day easier for me. All I had to do was point my camera and shoot. :)

I'm now pushing through the editing with the aim of getting an album design together this afternoon. I use Kiss Wedding books and their SWAT designer for the albums. I CANNOT recommend this company highly enough. If you're getting married any time soon, even if you don't choose me to do your photos, speak to your photographer and get them to look at the Kiss system! 

Anyway, back to Sally and Ady. I was honoured to be part of their wedding day. They are a beautiful couple, and beautiful people inside and out. I mean, COME ON! How GORGE are these two?!

Anyone who knows Sally will tell you that she's somewhat of a perfectionist and her obsessive attention to detail was evident throughout the wedding. Her dress was amazing, but I'm gonna tease you with only one little picture. ;)

Though, when you see Adrian's reaction to seeing Sally in her dress for the first time, you just know how amazingly stunning she looked:

That face is all *cat that got the cream*!! ;)

Sally did fantastically at not crying, despite several hairy moments throughout the day:

Though Ady helped by nervously fluffing his lines 

The rings were just as lovely, and that attention to detail came through again, each one is inscribed inside. Sally's with Mrs Lomax and Ady's with Mr Lomax. Doesn't that just make your heart melt a little?!

And of course, I couldn't post a blog about the wedding without a picture of Sally and Ady's adorable son, Oliver. He was very camera shy throughout the day, but I got a couple of him playing around. And he was an excellent photographers assistant, telling everyone to "cheese"! 

Sally, Ady I hope you like the little preview. I CANNOT wait to show you the rest of the pictures. 

C

xxxxxx

Finally, the photos!! :)

I know a lot of people have been waiting for the photos from our getting married. It's been a pretty hectic time at home, but I finally got finished processing them. There isn't really much to say, except that the vast majority of these shots are the work of our 12 year old son. (The ones that I took are those with Cas in them, and the one of the three of us was taken by my bridesmaid Gina).

I cannot express how happy I am that we are married. And how proud I am of Cassius for capturing these moments so beautifully. The kid's always had a good eye, but these shots, they're really special. He didn't take photos that day, he captured memories.

To Gary I say, thank-you and I love you! To Cassius I say, Thank-you, you did a fantastic job kiddo!

  

 

 

We have been overwhelmed by all the well wishes from our family and friends. It's wonderful to find that so many of you are so happy for us. 

Mr & Mrs Meadows-Haworth

xxxxxxx

So, erm, yeah, we kinda got married! :)

Gary and I have been together for more than 8 years now. For around the last 5 we've talked about and planned our wedding. What church it would be at, where we'd have the reception, who would take the photographs (we've narrowed it down to Jerry Ghionis or Jasmine Star - we just need to win the lottery to afford them). We've planned the outfits, the first dance song. Basically, we have planned EVERYTHING.

We realised that the wedding we want will be expensive, it will be big and white, and have all the fancy trimmings. BEcause, that's the kind of wedding that we want. We want a day of total, utter and all encompassing luxury. So, we knew that we would have to wait. Wait until I'd finally got a "real job" (as opposed to scrabbling around part-time as a PhD student). Wait until we had paid off more bills, got money in the bank for Cassius's future. So, we planned, but our intention was always to wait.

When I proposed to Gary on leap day (2012) it wasn't like an out-of-the-blue thing. It was essentially a plot on my behalf to either get a pretty ring or a pretty dress. When he said yes, and gave me a pretty ring I was overjoyed. Immediately people began asking the question "So, when's the wedding?" Our stock response was, "in a few years", "when Claire's finished uni", "when we can afford the wedding we want". And we were happy with this.

Then, around Christmas time some things happened. Things that really made us evaluate what was important. We had been talking for a few months about me publishing under my to-be married name, so there was no disconnect in my research publications. We kept talking about the fact that we needed to make wills, since otherwise our house would not be guarunteed to one of us if the other died. For me, the other pressing issue was that Cassius would be able to stay with Gary should "the worst" happen. We'd talked around these things, we'd looked at compromises and how we could patch-work these things until we got married.

Then stuff happened (personal stuff that I'm not going to share) and brought into sharp focus just how important it was for us to REALLY, OFFICIALLY be a family. Gary and I sat in the kitchen together, talking about all of the things that we needed to do. All of the practical and pragmatic reasons for us to get married. The only thing negating this was our desire to have our dream wedding day.

Then Gary said "lets separate them. We can get married now, and have the wedding later". This is why I know he's the man for me, how I know that we are meant to be together, because this suggestion made perfect sense! It solved all of our "legal" issues, and provided us with the security we needed. And still allowed us to have our perfect day.

When we made this decision, it was important to us that our getting married now, was in no way considered to be our "wedding". We want all of our friends and family to share in our wedding day, like they would any other "real" wedding. We didn't want the wedding day to be seen as some sort of secondary event, because it most certainly wont be!

So, we agreed to have only a few people at the marriage ceremony, the most important being our Grandmothers. We wanted to go to the register office, sign the papers and be "married". So that's what we've done.

We don't want a big fuss now, as far as we are concerned this was just a legal thing. Yes, we're delighted to be Mr and Mrs. But we still want our wedding day. And we are going to expect all of those who are invited to it, to treat it as the "real" wedding that it truly will be. We are really looking forward to sharing that day with you and we hope that you will understand our decision.

Essentially, we got married, but we haven't had the wedding yet. When we do, we'll want all of you there.

xxx

Introducing Little J

Life has been pretty busy for my alter-ego the PhD student and earlier this year I was sick, so this shoot was later than it should have been. Little J was born just after Christmas, he was a teeny, tiny little baby. So sweet and quiet. I know Cas was once smaller, but knowing and believing are two very different things!

So, finally a few weeks ago, we managed to arrange an afternoon for the shoot. You may remember this little sweetheart from just over a year ago, well she's much bigger now!

And she LOVES her new baby brother!

I love this family so much. There is so much love here it's almost tangible. These are parents who truly idolise their children. They know how precious they are and hold them tightly. But there's lots of fun here too. I'm proud to know this family. Proud to be able to call them my friends. And most of all grateful that they allowed me to capture these moments for them.

I hope you like the post guys! Can't wait to give you the rest of the pictures. 

C
xxx

Earth Hour 2013

Some of you may already know that last night was Earth Hour night. For those unfamiliar with Earth Hour, it is an environmental initiative that asks people to shut off lights and other electrical items for one hour, on the same day each year. The idea is to turn off all the lights in every town/city in the world; for one hour the world will go dark. In our house we have observed Earth Hour for a few years now, filling the time chatting and telling silly stories. This year Cas wanted to play Lego boardgames. So we got out the candles and settled down to play. The light was so lovely, and the moment with my boys so precious that I wanted to document it. I grabbed my camera and took a few shots. These pictures for me represent the sanctuary that my little family gives me, and how precious our time together is. They represent us, bare, stripped down without the distractions of technology, enjoying each other's company.

I really enjoyed our quiet time last night. But it's back to the grind-stone for me, I've a million things to do, not least of which is finish the editing from my recent baby shoot.

C

xxx