On a snowy icy cold day in London like today, it’s the perfect time to relive warm memories of summer holidays.

Here’s the second post on my mini-holiday (kind of like a mini-moon!)  to Formentera. The other way to travel to the island of Formentera is by ferry, which takes around 45 minutes from Ibiza. There is no airport on the tiny Balearic island of Formentera, which is about 12 miles long, so the only way to reach it is by boat.

But it is as they say, about enjoying the journey, not the just the destination, and one of my favourite moments was seeing the island of Ibiza from the sea, with Dalt Vila, the ancient city on the hill with it’s ramparts and vast terraces, rising above it all. Dalt Vila is a world heritage site dating back to the Phoenician times (1500-300 B.C) and even more impressive when viewed from the sea.

I love the roar of the big engines, mixing with the crash of the waves the big boat creates in it’s wake. And after a stretch of open sea, seeing Formentera appear on the horizon, with it’s promise of tranquility, peace and escape…..

Later this week, Formentera itself.

A huge congratulations to Lina & Andrew who after meeting on Valentine’s Day a few years ago, tied the knot in December at a pre-Christmas wedding. The ceremony was held at Chelsea Registry Office on the Kings Road and the reception at Sketch in Mayfair. Lina is a make up artist and we have previously worked together, so I was thrilled when Lina rang me and asked me to be her wedding photographer. What I didn’t know is that the call I had about the date a few days before was from her romantic fiance, Andrew, who knew she wanted me to shoot her wedding, and was secretly checking I was available before telling her the good news. Lina had a strong idea of what she wanted her look to be, and I love the ethereal dress she wore & the matching white accessories. A true winter princess!

Sketch is quite a special place for me too….. it’s where I had my first proper date with the Man, now my fiance. On Valentine’s Day no less. So to be able to go back and photograph a wedding there was truly special and magical. The food was incredible, the surroundings absolutely stunning with their rich velvety fabrics and warm, opulent colours perfect for a cosy winter celebration. Add a group of special family & friends and some fine food and wine….then mix in the Singing Waiters, the insanely talented silouette artist Alison Russell (this is the first time I had seen a silouette artist at work and she was amazing!) and you have a fun and celebratory evening. Kudos to Sarah Haywood for making it all run so smoothly and for her special touches (I love the mistletoe and glitter ribbon placenames).

So Lina and Andrew, wishing you both a wonderful magical and long life together….may all your dreams come true xxx

Wedding Planner: Sarah Haywood, Reception Venue: The Lecture Room & Library at Sketch London; Dress by Anatoliy Andreychyk, Hair by Maximiliano Centini, Make up by the Bride Lina Cameron, Flowers by Shaftsberries, Rolls Royce Phantom by Kruuz Chauffeurs, Silouette Artist Alison Russell from The Roving Artist, Cake by Sketch.

So in 2011 holidays kind of fell by the wayside, bar a few days…. it was all so excited with moving part-time to Ibiza, and the arrival of Lolo, and the Ibiza portrait shoots. Then there was all the beautiful weddings I was commissioned to cover, the travel to beautiful places, the love and the celebration, and then alongside that the sadness of the sudden loss of my dear mummy.

By the end of September I was worn out. And what better way to restore the body and soul than by spending a day at sea. One of my favourite ever things to do is to charter a boat for the day, and cruise around the coast of Ibiza, or head over to Formentera to Juan y Andrea for lunch. There’s something about being out at sea that soothes my soul…the sound of the waves, the clear turquoise waters, the white foam of the surf behind the boat. It’s seeing the land from the sea. Do you know what a different perspective that gives you? Experiences like this are food for my soul and candy for my eyes.

I make no bones about it, I have no aspirations to be a sailor. Oh no. The boats that best suit me are the ones where someone else does the hard work and I can lie back and admire the view, drink the champagne, listen to the music & document my day. Apparently the boat we chartered is actually owned by a photographer. I can but dream

The monumental and wild cliffs of Formentera looked down on us keeping us in our place. The sea was cool and refreshing. We swam underwater in secret caves.

A lazy lunch in the shade, clear turquoise waters. A bottle of chilled rose and a round of hierbas to finish off.

The feel of the breeze against sunkissed skin. Chats and excitement. The feeling of freedom.

Flying back to the port of Ibiza at sunset, a glass of champagne in hand, and music pumping out over the roar of the engines and the waves.

Bliss.

If you are coming to Ibiza in 2012 for a pre-wedding or portrait shoot with me, how about doing this for a day? And if you don’t plan to come out, couldn’t this seriously tempt you?

And if you really persuade me, I could come on the boat with you, and document your day. Although as I found out, manual focusing on a moving boat isn’t for the fainthearted….

Boat by Boats Ibiza, Dog Sitting by John.

This beautiful bride designed her own dress, and made (yes, made) her own cake. This is do-it-yourself at it’s most glamorous!

Venue: The Goring Hotel. Shoes by Christian Dior

I am thrilled to have one of my weddings in the new Reverie magazine. A beautiful wedding lifestyle online magazine, and the first of it’s kind in the UK, Mary and Kate have excelled themselves in producing a visually stunning publication with beautiful and interesting features.

A wedding I shot last August at The Bingham in Richmodn, Karina and Dan’s soft and beautiful dusky pink affair, is in the debut issue, and it’s wonderful to see it laid out like this.

I definitely recommend taking a look, it’s proper eye candy! Here’s a taster of what it looks like….

Today is my first day back at work after a wonderful break for holidays, during which I’m really had time to take stock and reflect.

I love the start of a New Year. It’s a time for looking back, acknowledging the successes and achievements of the past year, and for looking forward and planning and setting goals for the coming year. I’m a big fan of setting goals and planning out my life. It really works. I also like to make space for the spontaneous, and new unexpected opportunities, but you can’t beat dreaming up the Master Plan and working towards it all coming to fruition.

Ten years ago I was a single girl living in a rented flat in Clerkenwell, London. I had a job that didn’t fulfill me, I longed to do something visually creative. I didn’t have any commitments, any responsibilities, but I wasn’t feeling fulfilled. One day I bunked off work and spent the day sitting on my bed in my teeny tiny city room, with it’s fuchsia walls and 60′s orange and gold curtains and red carpet….(sounds like overkill but it kind of worked. I loved that room!), I dared to dream. Dream of what my life could be….if I could dream up any life what would it be like? Where would I live, what would it look like? What would I have around me? Whom would be with me? What would I do for a living? In my spare time?

I drew a huge map, my mind alive as ideas poured out of me….I was limited only by my imagination and the ideas kept coming. And there it was: My Dream Life.

To first know what’s right for you, you have to take time to know yourself. That’s a pretty huge thing to do, but once you got that part on it’s way, you can start to identify the kind of life that could make you happy.

So I have spent the last 10 years, quietly, studiously working away at putting all the elements together, adjusting as needed, getting things back on course, sometimes taking a new turn as I progressed. But always bearing in mind the bigger picture. Those paper dreams.

I’ve read a lot of books. Books about life, books about business, books about self development, books about spirituality and religion. And I have done courses. Meditation weekends, Buddhist retreats, yoga retreats…I’ve found a great team of people to tend to my wellbeing, and help me nurture myself… I’ve made list after list of goals, affirmations, plans and dreams, more dreams.

And slowly it started to come together…..like a giant jigsaw I slotted the pieces in together one by one.

I bought a house. In an area where no-one else was wanting to buy at the time. But it was all part of the masterplan and with risks come rewards. I handed in my notice at work and I rented rooms to fellow art students to pay the mortgage whilst I went back to college. I worked a ton of part time jobs to make ends meet. From working in bars, in shops to shooting children’s portraits. One of my jobs was waitressing wealthy Jewish weddings…and I smile to myself when I now shoot at some of the venues I waitressed at not that long ago. And this time around I am eating the food, not serving it. A sweet and welcome change of fate.

I put myself through college for the third time, slowly introduced myself to the world of being a working photographer and year by year, attracted the life and opportunities that were right for me. There is far far too much to say here for a single blog post.

Was it easy? No.

Has it been a rewarding, exciting, fulfilling, surprising, engaging journey? Absolutely.

So this weekend I read my goals from 3 years ago. So some of them were a little optimistic (like the six figure salary…I’ll keep dreaming on that one!) but many, far more than I expected, had actually been fulfilled. That life I once dreamed of had like a butterfly from a chrysalis, slowly emerged. Shakily at first, but gradually finding it’s feet and trusting it’s all going to be ok.

So the sentence at the top of this blog post is actually from my business & personal philosophy which you can read on my website. A whole lot of thinking went into that, 2 days’ worth to be precise, and I can honestly say that I truly live by each line. It’s not just a throwaway set of sentences there to look good, or say what people want to hear, but something that I strive to deliver through my work and that represents who I am. I’ll be writing more about each line over the coming weeks.

And to finish……I have chosen this photograph as to me open skies and oceans always represent the infinite possibilities that are open to us.

If we dare to dream.

Winter in Ibiza can have it’s own entertainment….

Shot in the days before Lolo when I had serious dog envy….can you tell?

Happy memories of Mike & Kate’s wonderful wedding in Lagarde, France held at Castelnau des Fiermarcon, a whole village on the top of a hill you can rent for a wedding. Kate is definitely up there as one of the emotional brides I have worked with, and the day was an incredibly moving, emotional, fun and relaxed celebration. The beauty of a destination wedding is being able to spend so much time with family & friends and here they all stayed with the couple in the little houses in the village. The night before their wedding was a BBQ, and the day after – a wonderful meal and tour of a private vineyard with wine tasting. I love the pretty little French soaps and beautiful booklet that greeted us on arrival; a custom guide to the weekend’s festivities, who was staying where & what was happening. Each morning a little bag of fresh French pastries were left outside our rooms…the perfect pick up with with a cup of steaming coffee.

Mike must be one of the most romantic grooms I have come across (up there with Nancy’s husband, Adam), in respect of how sweet and thoughtful he was to his bride on the morning of their wedding.  Mike created a set of beautiful personal gifts for his bride to open, based around the traditional wedding theme ‘Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue’….there was an exquisite personalised Smythson notebook, a framed photograph of Pearl their friend’s French bulldog which they both dote on and often look after, some diamond earrings….. and more….. Is this a new trend for grooms to spoil their brides with gifts on the morning of the wedding? I do hope so!! (and I hope the Man is reading this!

Mike & Kate, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Much love for the longest and happiest marriage together and many years of dog owning joy!

Kate’s dress by Suzanne Neville; Shoes by Christian Louboutin, Venue: Castelnau des Fieumarcon, Hair & Make Up: Antonia Krieger at Elle au Naturel; Stationary by Smythson; Bride’s Robe is the Matinee Kimono by Agent Provocateur.

Here’s what Mike said when they received their the album…

“Thank you so much for your incredible efforts with our wedding album.  It is the perfect record of the happiest day of my life and something I will always treasure. The presentation is stunning and I know my parents (and Kate’s) will get huge pleasure from it too. Looking back, I can honestly say that asking you to be our photographer was the best investment we made in the whole wedding process.  Thank goodness for Pearl!!” (to read about Pearl click here)

{Please do not feature without permission, thank you.}

The couple rented the private village of Castelnau des Fiemarcon in France and held a 3 day celebration for their wedding. The night before was a low key BBQ in the garden of one of the houses. Coming up tomorrow, the wedding itself….and if you missed how we met yesterday have a look at Pearl. If I am shooting your wedding, it can be really lovely to add on a couple of hours coverage of the night before, especially if you are planning something special. The sweetness and warmth of people coming together in anticipation of the big celebration….relaxed and intimate…

Venue: Castelnau des Fiermarcons, Gascony, France; Kate’s Dress by 3.1 Philip Lim

Meet Pearl. This beautiful little French bulldog is the reason I wound up in France photographing the wedding of Kate & Mike. And yes, this photograph was taken on their actual wedding day. And yes, that is a framed picture of Pearl that Kate received as a wedding gift from Mike. It’s safe to say we are all pretty dog obsessed.

But what makes it even curiouser is that Pearl isn’t my dog, or even their dog…nope… in fact I don’t even know who Pearl actually belongs to.

The story started when I was on a train coming back from a shoot in London in August 2010…. pretty broody for a pup at the time I was always on the lookout for cute dogs to pet and admire…. and right there on the train was this adorable little black and white French bulldog. I asked the owners if they wouldn’t mind me petting her to which they agreed freely. We got chatting and I shared my desire for a pup of my own and my concern about who would look after my dog when I had shoots on. Well it turns out this little dog’s owner had the answer, a great pet sitting service right in my local area that collects and drops off your furry offspring to your door. The couple confessed that Pearl wasn’t actually their dog and that they too, were secretly broody for a furry companion too, but that work commitments prevented them from having a pup of their own, so they took Pearl out on weekends instead. Love on four paws……on demand….

The couple kindly agreed to find out the dog sitters details and email me with them so maybe, just maybe, my own dog owning dreams could come true. I handed them my card with my email address on. Oh! They exclaimed. We are actually getting married ourselves next year. But we already have a photographer. We chatted dogs, weddings, dogs again….

And then a few weeks later I got an email…. your website is fantastic…would you be interested in talking about our wedding?

So one thing led to another….and at the end of July 2011, I found myself in the beautiful region of Gascony, France capturing their 3 day wedding celebration.

Tomorrow on the blog, the night before the wedding…and on Thursday the wedding itself…

{And yes, that robe is just beautiful isn’t it? It’s the Matinee gown from Agent Provocateur}

{And the fairytale ending to this little tale….a year on we are all overjoyed to announce we are all dog owners now, with the lovely Lolo joining me in Feb 2011 and Esteban to join Kate and Mike in January 2012. Congratulations guys! You will be the best pup parents, I know how much this little fellow is already loved & wanted!}