Another 'Magic Seven' post for you all today! And today I'm throwing it all the way back to Hannah and Dan's South of France village hall wedding. The most colourful and relaxed wedding.. drinks in the sunshine, boules, a BBQ and dancing the night away to a band in a local village hall.

So! At the end of March and into April my eldest daughter and I took a trip together. If you follow me on Instagram at @sallythurrell or @sallytphotography you may be up to date with where we visited, what we saw and how it went.. and you can see the outline of our plans over on my personal family blog here. 

Oh finally! Spring has arrived! And thank goodness, it's about time! I met up with Holly and Jamie for a pre-wedding shoot at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Yorkshire ahead of their York wedding in June. The sun came out, it was warm, and we had a lovely hour or so exploring all of the amazing areas of the park, looking for exciting spots for some photos. 

Oh it was *so* good to see Amy and Keyan again and to meet baby Clement - I shot their colourful marquee wedding years ago when I was just starting out. I visited the three (or four of them, counting Charlie their dog) for a family shoot at home in London last weekend and to see them both as parents having started a new chapter was just amazing. Clement is such a gorgeous little person and we even had a few smiles while I was there.

Today's 'Magic Seven' is Emma and Shaun! These two got married one hot May day at the beautiful and rustic York Maze - a quirky barn venue in North Yorkshire - and had their ceremony in a different barn next door (above); such a beautiful space to tie the knot. They chose York Maze because it's such a relaxed and chilled out venue and they could really personalise and put their own stamp on it.

I was completely over-the-moon-excited to be asked to be part of an elopement. I adore the busy chaos of wedding so much, and in the middle of the chaos is where I’m most comfortable, there’s so much going on, so much interaction, so many faces, so much to photograph.. I’ve always wanted to be part of an elopement to see the other side. The calm. The two people sloping off and celebrating quietly together. Savouring the quiet of the day and just spending some ridiculously special and sacred time together..

On Saturday I photographed Tina and Eddie's Worsall Village Hall wedding in Teesside. Eddie is a childhood friend of my husbands, and as soon as he started seeing Tina I loved her - they are an amazing match and I was so excited when they asked me to photograph their day..

Clare and Niall came back to Clare’s neck of the woods to tie the knot at gorgeous venue As You Like It in Jesmond, Newcastle. I love the set up there, everyone celebrated after the ceremony on the garden balcony and then went downstairs to the cellar bar to eat, drink and dance the night away. Plus these two were just gorgeous people inside and out which made the whole day a real dream to shoot – lovely stuff.

Alex and Andy had an intimate Winter wedding at the beginning of December at New Hall Farm in County Durham. It was such a special day - they'd hired the farmhouse for two nights with only their immediate family, everyone got ready for the wedding together and were all staying over in the same place both nights - it was just what an intimate wedding should be.

Katie "My style icons are Jackie O and Bubbles from Ab Fab"

Tim "I bet today she's looking more Bubbles than Jackie O, isn't she?"

Today, I have Elora and Bobby's wedding for you for The Magic Seven!

When Elora and Bobby got in touch they told me they were planning a day that was sure to be full of colour, celebration and chaos.. everything a wedding should be. It was everything they'd promised and more - it was amazing. Elora and Bobby had a Hindu wedding ceremony together with Elora’s brother Neil and his wife Vic. There was music, dancing, colour, hundreds of celebrating guests, belly dancing, Bobby playing the drums in his band and some pretty wild dancing to finish the night. 

"I lived in a lot of different places with different people over the years, we had great times but I never had that feeling of home since I left the house I grew up in. Two years ago Jo and I moved in together, and the morning after our first night in the new place I went downstairs to make breakfast and the feeling of home just hit me..."

I'm going to dive deeply into very personal stuff today on the blog (if you're looking for wedding films and table decor inspiration then keep scrolling..), this is a post and a project I worked on just for myself. I took a series of photos last year and couldn't face looking through them and editing them for a while, but eventually did, and these are a few favourites.

Today, for The Magic Seven, it's Nick and Stuart's Ham Yard Hotel wedding! It was a red-hot August day in London town, right in the heart of Soho. Nick and Stu emailed me their timings for the day and their plans prioritised mingling time with canapés, cocktails and, later, a surprise cinema screening.. I *knew* this was going to be a fabulously non-wedding-y-wedding to remember.. 

January creeps by so slowly then suddenly it's March! Did anyone see February? Did it even happen? Anyway, time for another 'Behind The Curtain' post - a little personal post about what's been going on behind the scenes for this Teesside wedding photographer (shameless SEO writing, there..)

Did you make any new year's resolutions? I realised about a week in to 2018 that it hadn't even crossed my mind. I've since made a few small business resolutions and I have some general targets.. but writing a list felt like setting myself up to fail.

Yulia and Grahame married in Brielle in The Netherlands and I was over the moon to be asked to go over and photograph their day. This beautiful little town was celebrating the WWII veterans on the day they married which meant the streets were already lined with bunting; and these two, together with their gorgeous boy Thomas and guests from all over the world, celebrated at a local restaurant just a short walk from the ceremony.

This is my beautiful sister-in-law Kelly, the day before she had baby Hector. We thought it would be a really special time to take some last photos of Kelly and bump, knowing that this was the last full day she'd ever be pregnant - the day before her third boy was born. 

Something I chat to my couples a lot between them booking and their wedding is their timings. I routinely send out timings forms (as most photographers do) ahead of the wedding to check and confirm locations, ceremony time, meal time, when the speeches will be.. you get the idea. The weddings I cover each year are really varied in that a lot of my couples are having weddings at venues with co-ordinators, and a lot are organising a lot of their own timings and their days have a more 'DIY' approach. Some of the weddings I cover are structured, and some aren't. Every wedding is different.

Hopefully this blog post will help cover any questions and give some advice that I've picked up along the way over my years shooting weddings. 

As promised, I'm keeping up with sharing more personal photography on the blog this year - just little snippets and highlights here and there. Over on my Instagram @sallytphotography - followers said overwhelmingly that they'd like to keep up with travel and personal creative projects, so here we are!

To celebrate Motherhood/Fatherhood/Parenthood (we're all-inclusive at this end) in time for Mother's Day this year I've decided to put together a little competition - you have the chance to win a full family shoot/maternity shoot/newborn shoot with me!