Denise and Bax’s wedding was great fun – sand, sea and sun as well as African percussion, happy chaos, and beautiful Gambian headdresses/costumes and DANCING!

I  (Elaine -  a  UK based  international wedding photographer)  travelled all the way to The Gambia from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire to cover their wedding photography, and was introduced to a whole new world in West Africa – where a bucket serves as a shower and rags knotted together become a rope for a well – yet there is a smile on every face.

One of the ladies in my compound was up before dawn everyday,  pounding beans to powder, which they then fried to make a crisp fluffy fritter  and sold along with spicy beans for local people’s breakfasts.

Other enterprising families made Baobao juice  – from the dried fruit of the tree shaken with water and flavoured with banana and coconut with milk – which they put into re-used plastic bottles from banana milk and sell from home.

Will be uploading more  travel pics from The Gambia soon too, as these pictures tell a story of the real Africa!

Denise met Bax while working out there a few years back, and she fell in love with The Gambia, and all her people.

Now got a summary of both the wedding ceremony in The Gambia and the full Gambian wedding celebrations the following day online as well as a selection of  travel pictures.

See the wedding ceremony pics here

We’ve all been looking forward to Denise and Bax’s exciting wedding in Africa for months, and now the time has nearly come for all the Northern guests to board a plane from Manchester to fly to Banjul. Denise found us on a lovely website run by a talented guy called Jim. He will be covering the run up to the wedding as well as publishing pics from his site that we send him so to avoid duplication initially please have a look on his site here: http://www.weddingphotographyworld.co.uk/#/reellife-photos-africa/4539836158

Am quite excited as have another wedding to cover in Australia next year – on a boat in Sydney Harbour -

http://www.starshipsydney.com.au/index.html

so will be out of the UK around that time, though we will still be available for weddings with other photographers in our team.

  The quality of the experience sometimes outweighs the need be profitable every week, so last year Reel Life Photos started accepting International wedding bookings, the first of which was a wedding in the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden http://weddingphotos-video.co.uk/blog/?p=182  where indoor temperatures are a static minus 5 degrees Centigrade.

    At the opposite end of the scale, this was followed by a wedding in Tenerife http://weddingphotos-video.co.uk/blog/?p=24   and here http://89.200.138.14/~weddingp/online/verifycus.php?shoot_id=841 where the sun shone brightly, adding romance to the sunset wedding pictures. 

   In March this year we had a fabulous location 10,000 miles away – in Jacob’s Creek Retreat in the Barossa valley, Australia – http://weddingphotos-video.co.uk/blog/?p=248 .  We did of course tag on a holiday! 

  This month (May) our overseas wedding was in the Loire valley France http://weddingphotos-video.co.uk/blog/?p=286 and http://89.200.138.14/~weddingp/online/verifycus.php?shoot_id=887/view.php?flag=view§ion_id=1045 

Our next overseas wedding is on 28 June – in Southern Ireland.  That one is going to be particularly exciting as it’s the first of 3 wedding days – for the same couple –  as they are having the Catholic church wedding in St. Aidans Cathedral in Enniscorthy followed by the reception at Amber Springs Hotel In Gorey, Wexford, then the following week its back to the UK for a civil wedding at Luton Hoo, in Bedfordshire, followed by the final wedding ceremony the week after – a traditional Hindu wedding – in a marquee in St. Albans!  Phew!

The day was one of the nicest days all week.  While the bride and bridesmaids were out getting their hair done, I busied about taking behind-the-scenes shots and  making the most the the beautiful morning light.

  Not wishing to use this blog as a “me” space, but rather as a means of communicating a personal vision through the eyes of a camera, I hesitate to make grand announcements, but as we are keen to cover weddings in any part of the world with brides and grooms who have depth and a caring attitude to the people they meet in life, then I suppose it won’t hurt to share my excitement with the world!

I hope to upload snippets from the visit to Australia but may not be as quick as usual in responding to emails or phone calls, as your day will be my night!  Am stepping out into the unknown – for me anyway – but a beautiful couple in Jacob’s Creek (near Adelaide) have entrusted me with their wedding photos on 15 March,  so  two nights on a huge huge plane is a small price to pay for the experience!  I do get a day walking round Hong Kong between flights so my eyes will be flitting from one peak of excitement to another! 

We also have my first ever wedding in Ireland booked for the end of June –  a Catholic ceremony followed by a traditional Hindu wedding –  and yesterday had an enquiry from a lovely couple for their wedding in Ice Hotel in Jukklasjarvi,  Sweden, where I covered Colin and Sarah’s wedding about the same time last year too. 

Got a lot of work to do before I go though…

 xx Elaine