I did a bit of turning 21 last week. I’ve never felt more silly. We went out for the day with one of our couples from last year – Artemis & Trevor. It was rad.

Dani uses one hand to bowl, the other is A CLAW!!!

Dani got a bowling injury on her smaller thumb.

You don’t know total despair till you’ve been bowling.

Dear lucky ball, it was good two have my fingers in you. Even if you were sticky/fluffy on the inside.

TREVOR-TRON.

ARTI-TRON

After bowling we decided to do something that I was good at. Eating. The balloons were actually attached to my shirt. I looked like an idiot. I didn’t care because I was about to eat.

Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes, love you all!

In our last post we mentioned about how slow we had got with blogging. Well this is the slowest post ever! We moved into our studio/shop front late October last year and it’s been a work in progress ever since. I’m gonna bore you with a story so brace yourself.

Before this, I worked from home. As awesome as it was, it was difficult to separate work from home. I don’t think I ever took a day off, I was easily distracted and I worked stupid hours as a result. So, around 2 years early than planned, Dani quit her day job at a bank, I packed up my kit and we got our first studio.

I fell in love with this place the moment I walked around. I loved it’s imperfections, it’s character and cottage-like charm. Dani raised an important issue: “Our work is modern and fresh but the studio is gonna feel super traditional”. I listened. Ignored her. Then called the estate agents the next day to arrange to sign it over to us.

There was alot of work to be done before we could start working from there. My favourite quote whilst decorating the studio was during the first week; “I think we should be ready to move in by the end of the week”. Understatement.

It was nearly two months before we were in the studio and meeting our first couples. Before we took over, it was a lovely little flower shop. We had a knock on the door over Christmas from the lady who used to run the shop. She explained how her and partner were working on a project to provide wedding flowers and photography in one package (her partner was a photographer). However, her partner died later that year and she decided to close the shop shortly after. She explained how surreal it was to see the shop become a wedding photography studio after they had made plans to put more emphasis on the wedding photography element of the business. It’s pretty corny but with this on our shoulders, I kind of feel that we owe it to them to make the most of this new opportunity. I’m glad she gets to see how we are progressing. Just before Christmas she dropped around the most awesome wreath for our front door.

It’s still pretty strange working in a new environment. I’m used to having my own private space, so having people glare through the front display window is sort of intimidating. My favourite people are the ones who still think it’s a flower shop. They haven’t seen the sign change and they walk in, look completely lost, mutter something, and then walk out without saying a thing to us.

Going ahead with the studio is by far one of the bravest moves I’ve ever made. It wasn’t a spare-of-the-moment thing, I spent months of sleepless nights number crunching and considering ever possible worst case scenario. Seeing something develop from the opportunities I’ve been given over the last few years is perhaps the most rewarding feeling ever.

Without breaking out into a Hollywood “thank you” blart, I want to say a massive thank you to ever.single.person that has been involved with what we’re doing in the last 6-12 months. Whether you’ve dropped by to help with DIY (because I SUCK at it) or simply gave us feedback recently, we couldn’t ask to be surrounded by a better bunch of people. Thank you everyone.

You couldn’t begin to understand the sheer stress the sign on the right caused us.

From left to right – Carrie & Gary, Jo & Tom and our studio super star – Artemis!

My fave B&W reportage shot of last year.

Our “work” and kitchen area is just behind these counters. It’s not really finished so maybe we’ll show you another time

We finally got round to creating a little display of all the photos of us with our couples (on the right)!

The most important part of the studio is Dani’s print because it makes me smile, keeps me motivated and SHE’S FREAKIN’ HOT.

It might look like a bit of fun but it is, infact, the hottest competition in the history of competitions.

I forgot to grab a shot of our open sign too. It reads “Yabba Dabba Doo! We’re Open “Come in and say hello”

So we’re now actually properly open. There’s still loads of work to be done but we’re gonna be working on this over the course of the next year or so. Again, a massive thank you to everyone who’s dropped by or been involved over the last few months and thanks to all our amazing clients for allowing us to pursue our dream. We owe you lot big time! If you haven’t had chance to pop down yet, what the heck are you playing at! Get yourself down here soon!