Manchester Bride

If you've been following this blog you should be used to these Bridal updates by now.  This is the penultimate one in the series, in which we took our latest model to Manchester to look for some interesting street locations to use as a build up for final 'Trash The Dress' extravaganza.

The dress you saw previously in the Crewe Hall shots and Alderley Edge gymnastics images is back.  This time though, Deb has been hard at work creating a new look, adding the black floral patterning and cummerbund/belt along with a few other adjustments.  The piece that she has created is a dress that is uniquely beautiful and I'm sure many many brides would like to have themselves.

We managed to find some brilliant locations on the day and get some great colour into the pictures.  I couldn't believe it when we drove past Granada Studios, I had completely forgotten about the old frontage they have there, and hence I had to spin the car around a grab a few shots, despite the fact it is actually bucketing down with rain and Abi is actually hiding under that small canopy!

Photography © Christopher Perkins

Make-Up and Styling: Deborah Lawson

Model: Abi Lutwyche

Assistant and Location Scout: Matt 'Darkscore'

Trash The Dress Liverpool

You've seen the video (if you haven't, look below/here) now check out the finished images...

'Trash The Dress' has become a craze amongst wedding photographers and their clients in recent years.  It is getting more and more of a buzz about it, as brides want some mementoes of the most special time of their lives that are individual, dramatic and fun.

If you've been following this blog, you will have seen these dresses before. At the earlier stages we were just playing around with them, testing ideas out and doing more of a bridal fashion theme. Now though, its time to TRASH them, and trash them properly. Hence the darling was going straight in the bin on our return.

So it was, that we found ourselves in a cold and torrential storm on a beach just north of Liverpool, UK, making a good old mess. This was August, it was supposed to be summer, but we all know you can't rely on the British weather, though it certainly worked for us.

Photography © Christopher Perkins 2008

Hair, Make-Up and Styling: Deborah Lawson

Model: Kitty Chu

Trash The Dress Beach Video

Last weekend was interesting!

It saw the third part of our ongoing 'Trash The Dress' project take us to the beaches just north of Liverpool.

The day had been in the planning for over a month with everybody booked, but in the week leading up to the shoot all we were having was bad weather.  It was raining and raining and forecast to continue.  Now I don't much rate our weather forecasters so I preferred to stay optimistic.  However, we did decided to go out and recce some backup locations.

The day came though, and the weather didn't look too bad.  We would go for it!  We grabbed some studio shots first, cos Deb had done an amazing creative job with the make-up, which had to recorded in all its glory.  Then it was off to the beach...at the first location it was very windy but thankfully not wet.  The second location though was slightly different, by thew time we arrived it was bucketing it down.  What to do, what to do?

Well we'd come this far and the intention was to destroy this dress, we had to do it.  I say all this because I need to give huge huge credit to our superb model for the day, Kitty Chu.  I cannot imagine other models going to the lengths she wanted to to get the best images we could.  So Kitty, THANKS!!

Enjoy this video, the final images shall be up here soon....

(They now are...click here)

(Video editing by Deborah Lawson)

Woodland Bride

"If you go down to the woods today..."

...you might just see a beautiful girl jumping around in a big white wedding dress!!!

Part 4 of mine and Deborah's exploration into the world of the adventurous bride found us in Alderley Edge woods in Cheshire.

This is somewhere I have been visiting (and photographing) for many years, as its a great place to walk and relax, but I've never approached it quite like this...

Photography © Christopher Perkins

Model: Amanda Dabrowski

Make-Up and Styling: Deborah Lawson

Crewe Hall Bridal Shoot

Its time for some more pictures...these posts are getting quite regular now!

In a continuation of our Wedding Dress theme, we descended on the very accommodating Crewe Hall.  This beautiful old hall provided an incredible backdrop for our images.

There is so much history here, from the moment you approach the hall along the long long tree lined driveway, you know you have arrived somewhere special.  The Hall even has it's own small chapel, which we were able to use for some of the shots, and there are gothic looking candles to be found dotted all over the place.

Photography © Christopher Perkins

Model: Amanda Dabrowski

Make-Up and Styling: Deborah Lawson

Behind the scenes - Christopher at work:

Urban Bride

Taking forward the Bridal Fashion theme, we wanted to push the idea away from the fairytale and into something a little more dark and sinister, whilst still retaining the high fashion look and feel...

I give you 'Urban Bride'!

Photography: © Christopher Perkins 2008

Model: Marina Fallahi

Make-Up and Styling: Deborah Lawson

Location: Macclesfield

Bridal Fashion @ Rookery Hall

Its time to get all romantic... Its wedding season!

The team has decided to get out to some beautiful locations this summer and create some new bridal fashion work.

For the first shoot, we visited Rookery Hall, near Nantwich, Cheshire.

My sincere thanks to Stephen Fearnley and his team for allowing us to use this beautiful venue for the backdrop to our photos.

Photography: © Christopher Perkins

Model: Marina Fallahi

Make-Up and Styling: Deborah Lawson