I only had to wait a couple of days in to January for my first wedding of 2012 and what a fantastic way it was to start the New Year!

Helena & David got married at the beautiful Mitton Hall in Whalley, Lancashire. I love Mitton Hall, it is one of those venues that is fantastic in both summer or winter so Helena & David couldn’t go wrong. As it turned out, although Helena & David got married shortly after New Year the weather wasn’t too bad and we were able to take lots of photographs outside as well as inside

I started the day with Helena as she got ready with her bridesmaids and from the moment I arrived everything flowed perfectly, the day couldn’t have gone any better.  Helena & David had included lots of really special touches and personal touches to their wedding day, including a wedding quiz in the bar area after the wedding breakfast – a great idea!

To Helena & David – thank you very much again for asking me to photograph your wedding, it was a fantastic day and it was an honour to capture it for you. It has been a real pleasure getting to know you both and I wish you a very long and happy marriage together x

Here are a selection of my favourite photographs from your wedding at Mitton Hall:

Just before Christmas last year, I had the huge pleasure of photographing Kim & James’s beautiful winter wedding at Brook Street Chapel and The Belle Epoque in Knutsford, Cheshire – and what a fantastic day it was!

Kim and James are such a nice couple and I have really enjoyed getting to know them over the past year or so. I don’t think any bride could have put more time and effort in to the planning of a wedding day than Kim had done (and I’m sure James too!) so I was so pleased for them when their wedding day turned out to be as perfect as Kim had planned. I started the day at Kim and James’ house where Kim was getting ready with her bridesmaids before driving to Knutsford to meet up with James and his groomsmen at Brook Street Chapel. The Chapel has special connections to James’ family which just made the ceremony even more personal.

After the wedding ceremony Kim and James invited me to join them for a ride in the wedding car (a Rolls Royce – without doubt the nicest car I have ever been in!) and we then took some photographs as the sun was setting over Knutsford – the light was just perfect and we even had some snow on the ground!

We then traveled back to the Belle Epoque for the wedding reception. It was really nice that my last wedding of 2011 was at the Belle Epoque because I love working there and it is just perfect for winter weddings with the roaring fire and intimate feel An extra bonus was that my very good friends The Leos Quartet were playing at the wedding too – my favourite quartet in my favourite venue with an amazing bride and groom – perfect!

To Kim & James – thank you so much again for asking me to be your wedding photographer. I am so pleased that you had the perfect winter wedding. It has been so know getting to know you both and I wish you both (and Isobel!) a very long and happy future together x

Here are a selection of my favourite photographs from your wedding day:

Ooh, my first full wedding blog post of 2012, but it’s actually of a wedding I photographed in 2011 – is that cheating? I don’t think so…

Emily got married at the magnificent Manchester Town Hall just before I went on holiday last year.  I had been looking forward to their wedding for a long time, I felt like I got to know them both really well before the wedding (not least because Mike himself is a very keen photographer!) and that always gives the wedding an extra special feel.

The whole wedding day was so relaxed and I think that comes across in the wedding photographs. The only time I really detected any nerves was Mike’s little look up and intake of breath as Emily walked down the aisle – I love that moment

A special mention also goes out to Emily’s father who not only made all the flowers for the wedding but also composed a unique piece of music for Emily’s walk down the aisle. Not only that but he played it himself! Such a nice, personal touch.

Also, this wedding was brilliant because Emily and Mike had The Leos Quartet playing for them – the best string quartet in Manchester and I am proud to say are very good friends of mine. They played Blue Monday, one of my favourite songs of all time, what more could I ask for?

To Emily and Mike – thank you so much again for asking me to photograph your Manchester Town Hall wedding. It has been a pleasure getting to know you both and I am so pleased you are so happy with your photographs. I wish you both a lifetime of happiness together x

Late last year my very good friend, the incredibly talented wedding videographer Tom Harrington from Silk Wedding Videos, met up Jo and Richard whose wedding I photographed last year to interview them about their wedding photographs.

Watching the resulting video makes me feel incredibly proud and happy. To see Jo and Richard talking about their wedding day and their wedding photographs with so much love and happiness makes me realise just how lucky I am to be a wedding photographer.

I really can’t thank Jo and Richard enough, not just for asking me to photograph their wedding at Great John Street Hotel in Manchester last year but also for taking the time to help Tom with this video. I know it is a nerve-wracking experience to be interviewed in front of a camera so I am extremely grateful to them both. Thank you so much again Jo & Richard

Also, I would obviously like to thank Tom for filming this for me. I have been fortunate enough to work with Tom on lots of weddings and I really can’t recommended him highly enough, his work never fails to amaze me

Wow, what a year 2011 has been!

I honestly can’t describe how much I have enjoyed this year. Thinking back about all the fantastic people I have met and all the weddings I have had the pleasure to photograph, it really hits home how lucky I am to have the job that I do.  I am extremely fortunate.  I would like to say a huge thank you to all the bride and grooms who have asked me to photograph their wedding this year and have helped make 2011 so special for me.

It is not only the bride and grooms I have worked with that have helped make 2011 such a great year for me. I have also got to know lots of other North West wedding photographers extremely well this year and I am privileged to be say that many are now very good friends of mine. The network we have put together is based solely on friendship and support rather than competition, which is just as it should be, and to be a part of it is just brilliant.

I have photographed 34 weddings this year and have enjoyed each and every one. I have been lucky enough to work at so many fantastic wedding venues, including Great John Street Hotel, The Midland Hotel, Mitton Hall, Belle Epoque, Samlesbury Hall, Hassop Hall, Willington Hall, Hillbark Hotel, Rowton Hall, Chester Zoo, The Inn at Whitewell, Davenport Green, Rivington Hall Barn, Mere Court, Manchester Monastery, The Lowry, Sandhole Oak Barn, Manchester Town Hall and many others.

I won the UK Wedding Belles Wedding Photograph of the Year Award, was awarded a Bronze and a Merit Award in the 2011 BIPP North West Photography Awards and my work has been published in Cheshire Life, The Lancashire Evening Post and Pure Weddings Magazine. My photographs have also featured on a number of popular online wedding blogs.

I also started using Twitter (https://twitter.com/neilredfern) a lot more this year (probably too much!) and now have over 1,000 followers.  My Facebook Page now has over 1,630 ‘likes’ too, so a huge thank you to everyone who has supported me in the online world!

Not only would I like to thank all the bride and grooms who I have had the pleasure of photographing this year, but also those who have booked me for their wedding next year. I am virtually fully booked for 2012 now, which is just fantastic. I have so many amazing weddings to look forward to, including the wedding of my very good friend Tom Harrington of Silk Wedding Videos, who happens to be one of the very best wedding videographers in the North West – no pressure there then…!

2012 is also going to be very exciting for me as I am going to be a speaker at the SWPP Photographic Convention. The convention is extremely popular and attracts thousands of visitors so to be one of the speakers is a huge honour and I am really looking forward to it. If you are attending the convention you can find more details about my talk by clicking here.

So once again I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has helped make 2011 such a fantastic and enjoyable year for me – I am very grateful to you all.

To all my friends I wish you a very Happy Christmas and New Year – I hope 2012 is a brilliant year for you all!!

Finally, here is a slideshow of my favourite wedding photographs from 2011, 12 months work in 4 minutes! I hope you enjoy it

A couple of days ago Michelle and I got back from an amazing holiday in Thailand!

We had a brilliant time, Thailand is such a beautiful country and thanks to all the effort Michelle had put in to the planning (I must admit I didn’t really do anything….) we got to see lots of different places and do so many incredible things such as swimming in the rainforest, canoeing, feeding and washing elephants and trekking in the jungle! Thank you so much again, Michelle

We started the holiday in Chiang Mai, a city in the north of Thailand. Whilst we were there we visited lots of temples, went on trips to Doi Inthanon (the highest peak in Thailand) and saw the incredible Wachiratan waterfall. We then spent two nights in Khao Sok National Park where amongst other things we stayed on a floating tent in the rainforest, just amazing. We spent the second (and more lazy) week at Kata Beach in Phuket in the south. We spent most of this week on the beach but we made time to see The Big Buddha (a hugh statue which overlooks Phuket) and went to Patong for the night (a crazy crazy place!) to meet our friend Rebecca who is traveling and was there at the same time.

I didn’t take my “big” camera this time as I didn’t want to be lugging around my bag everywhere with me (and I only end up changing lenses every two seconds when I’m supposed to be on holiday!) so I bought myself a Fuji X100 compact camera which I now love. I am so pleased I bought it it is a brilliant camera. The quality of images which it produces is literally unbelievable, they are easily DSLR quality and I would say that it is even better than my Nikon D700 cameras when it comes to shooting at high ISOs. The Fuji X100 has a fixed focal length lens so there is no zoom option, which takes a bit of getting used to but the quality of the images more than makes up for that. The camera also has a fantastic ‘panoramic’ option which I loved, by automatically stitching lots of images together it allows you to take very wide panoramas which look amazing. I can’t wait to incorporate them in to my wedding photography now!

Here are a few of my favourite Thailand photographs:

These are the floating tents we stayed in – amazing!

How cool is this setting for wedding photographs?!

I would have LOVED to have been this bride and groom’s wedding photographer….

Last month saw me back at one of my favourite wedding venues, Mitton Hall near Clitheroe for Janine and Terry’s beautiful Lancashire wedding

I first met Janine and Terry earlier this year at Mitton Hall and I had been looking forward to their wedding for a long time.  I started the day with Janine as she got ready in a lovely cosy cottage a couple of miles away. There was a real feeling of excitement (and a few nerves!) in the air – the perfect wedding mix!

Janie & Terry’s day was full of emotion and it really couldn’t have gone any better, just to be a part of it was amazing.  It was one of those days where I realise how lucky I am to do the job that I do.

To Janine & Terry – thank you very much again for asking me to photograph your wedding and making me feel so much a part of your day.  I have really enjoyed working with you both and I know you will both have a very long and happy marriage together I wish you both all the very best for the future.

Here are a selection of my favourite photographs from your wedding day:

I recently had the pleasure of covering Ailsa & Adrian’s beautiful wedding at The Monastery in Manchester.

Ailsa & Adrian are one of the nicest couples you could meet and I am so pleased that they had the perfect day that they deserved.  The whole day was really so relaxed and fun and everybody had a great time.  The only slight hiccup was when Ailsa & Adrian tried releasing some Chinese lanterns shortly after their first dance, but no fire engines were needed so it was all fine

This was the first wedding I had covered at The Manchester Monastery in Gorton and wow, what a venue!! The Monastery is truly stunning, the main hall itself just takes your breath away as soon as you walk in, it really is amazing.  The great thing about is that as the time moves on and the natural light starts to fade, it looks different again. I just hope I am lucky enough to photograph more weddings at The Monastery in the future!

To Ailsa & Adrian – thank you again for asking me to be your wedding photographer. Be able to photograph your special day for you was a pleasure. You are a fantastic couple and I wish you both lots of luck and happiness for your future together

Here are a few of my favourite photographs from your wedding:

I recently had the huge pleasure of covering my first Civil Partnership and wow, what a day it was! Kate and Anna got married at one of my favourite wedding venues, Mitton Hall in Lancashire, and if ever there was such a thing as a perfect wedding, I think this was it.

The whole day was amazing, from the emotion and happiness of the ceremony through to the laughter and smiles of the speeches, Kate & Anna’s wedding was beautiful in every respect. Even the weather played it’s part with the sun shining all day for them.

One moment in particular which I think I will always remember from Kate & Anna’s wedding was during the ceremony when all the guests (and the registrar!) sang All You Need is Love by The Beatles. It was an honour to be there, seeing everyone so happy.

To Kate & Anna – thank you very much again for asking me to be your wedding photographer. It has been a pleasure getting to know you and I am really pleased you are so happy with your photographs.  I wish you both a very long and very happy future together

Here are a selection of my favourite photographs from your special day:

I recently had the pleasure of covering Vicky & Alistair’s beautiful wedding at Sandhole Oak Barn in Cheshire – the first wedding I have covered at this fantastic venue

This was such a great day, as soon as I arrived in the morning to take photographs of Vicky and her bridesmaids as they got ready, I could tell that it was going to be a really amazing wedding day – which is exactly what it turned out to be.

Apart from the periodic spells of rain (it rained, then the sun came out, it rained, then the sun came out…) the whole day went perfectly, full of emotion and happiness.  I don’t think either Vicky (who looked stunning!!) or Alistair stopped smiling the entire day

To Vicky & Alistair – thank you very much again for asking me to be your wedding photographer. I have really enjoyed working with you both – thank you for making me so welcome on the day and for your very kind words about your photographs. I wish you both a very long and happy marriage together – which I know it will be!

Here are a selection of my favourite photographs from your wedding: