June Highlights

This month we've spent a little less time shooting and a lot more time editing and doing some behind the scenes websitey stuff (that's the technical term....) and also generally enjoying a little bit of a break before we get super busy....

Vicky & James Village Hall Wedding

Victoria & James tied the knot In St Albans this month before heading off to their Village Hall Wedding Reception in Potten End. I love village hall weddings! They're always so full of character and personal touches. The hall itself was decorated with lanterns, fairy lights and flowers in hessian wrapped jam jars. They spent a glorious summers day celebrating with their family & friends with Pimms and a delicious Greek style BBQ.

More sneak peeks of the lovely newlyweds here...

https://www.hayleypettitphotography.com/post/victoria-james-wedding-preview-a-summer-wedding-at-potten-end-hall-village

Ash & Kristians Hunstanton Beach Shoot

Engagement Shoots are becoming increasingly popular and I think its a really fun and wonderful way to document this time in your life. We both practically grew up on the beach, so we always jump at the chance for a beach Eshoot!! Kristian & Ash are getting married in Spain next year and we got to spend the afternoon shooting their Engagement pictures at Hunstanton.

Kristian & Ash are a super lovely couple and I loved hearing all about how they met whilst Kristian, from America, was backpacking in Europe. It was such a hot, bright day and whilst we had to battle with the sun a bit (just look at that sky!!!) we had so much fun exploring the sand dunes and paddling in the ocean.

The Fear

That's some good resting bitch face right there... Sneaky pic of me working in my pj's, by Craig

Despite my love of storytelling, I've never seen myself as much of a writer. Anxiety usually gets the better of me and I spend far too long agonising over how it sounds, or what other people will think. Do I sound like an idiot? Probably. Am I making sense? Unlikely. And in the end its taken so much time that you begin to question the value of it. So for a long time, I didn't bother and made excuses about why I didn't want or need to blog or write. I know that I'm not the only one, far from it, that can struggle with "The Fear". Because that's essentially what it is. Fear of getting it wrong or being judged or looking like a complete doofus.

But I'd quite like to call bullshit on this way of thinking. Our job as photographers mean that we get to show all the love, happiness and joy that we are lucky enough to encounter on a weekly basis. And our lives are so intertwined with social media that its very easy to only share the "shiny" side of the life we live. This in turn creates this desire for everything to be perfect, leading to all this overthinking nonsense! But life is never always "shiny", and rarely perfect, so in the interest of balance and not wanting to only show the filtered versions of ourselves, I'm sharing it here.

And in all honesty, something quite lovely has happened since the business has expanded. I've found myself having extra time and space to grow. As a result I've felt inspired to share, what I hope is helpful advice, from years of shooting weddings. And I've loved writing them!! In fact, I've got gigantic whole lists of ideas on my cork board (made by Craig with actual wine corks, he's the cutest) and the only reason I've only written 2 this month was to avoid being spammy! I'ts not that the fear no longer exists, I'm just learning to ignore it more :) Something I would highly recommend!

If you have any suggestions of articles that you would find useful then give me a shout. Whether you've already had your wedding and have words of wisdom you want to share, or if you're in the throes of planning and would like advice on a particular topic, I'd love to hear from you!

And if you didn't catch them, you can still see our June articles here:

Alternative Readings For Your Wedding Ceremony

Things You Should Ask Your Wedding Photographer

Play time.....

For us personally this month will probably be forever known as the month where we went to ALL the gigs!! We started the first weekend in June off with Muse, who were straight up amazing. We spent all night dancing around like lunatics and the light show was epic. This was then followed the very next day by Tenacious D.....needless to say the following Monday was a pj's and Netflix kinda day!

Later in the month we headed to Wembley Stadium to see Fleetwood Mac in celebration of Craig's birthday, which was amazing!!! Given that we spend most of our spare change on gigs, I've been lucky enough to see lots of incredible bands, but seeing these guys live was hands down one of the best experiences. Ever. Can we go and do it all again now please?!