Today I would like to share with you the wedding that became a fantastic start to my 2013 wedding season back in March. Megan and Matt are such an amazingly energetic couple that I must have caught their adrenaline wave and the whole day passed in a wink of an eye even for me! Megan is American and the couple wanted a London wedding featuring signature London signs like postboxes, beautiful landmarks and a traditional English pub. Their wedding colours – red and champaign – could not fit better the scenery.  The ceremony took place in the Chelsea Town Hall. It is an elegant and quiet venue ideally located for a London wedding. The couple decided to have the ‘first look’ before the ceremony and it was a lot of fun to capture Matt’s changing expressions when he saw his stunning bride! These photos will certainly be one of their favourites : )

Another sweet moment of the day was the wedding ceremony via Skype for Megan’s grandparents who could not come to London. The registrars were incredibly helpful with holding MacBook and making sure Megan’s family see everything. : ) There clearly was a certain professionalism in how they were holding the laptop during the ceremony. Nothing is new under the sun : )

The day concluded in a nice English pub The Lukin . I loved the place for its stylish interiors, great food and a friendly team. All the guests had a lot of fun and really enjoyed the day. It was an absolute pleasure for me to photograph Megan and Matt’s wedding, thank you for having me guys!

xoxo

Today I’m giving start to a new category on my blog, which I called “Behind the scenes”. Under this label I will be publishing some interesting findings which could be of use for you when planning your big day.

This first blog post I’ll start with an interesting venue idea. As soon as I arrived at the Strawberry Hill Golf Club for a chat about golf and weddings (what a lovely mix : ) I pictured to myself a very fun and relaxed day of a local couple having a quite intimate and stylish wedding (up to 60 guests). Designed as a traditional pub and decorated with lots of memorable things reminding of its more than a century long history, Strawberry Hill Golf Club is still a very affordable venue. Simple décor inside and the rules of the house allow couples to be as creative with decorating their day as they wish. Vast spaces around the Club House give opportunity for using marquees for bigger events.

Endless green golf course, lots of fresh air, flowers, and of course all types of modern and vintage golf props immediately suggest a wedding theme – ‘how about a round of golf in the open air’? Add to it a bit of creativity and style from a professional wedding stylist (like for example Vintage Style Hire) and there is a styled vintage golf party with lots of fun for guests and of course amazing photos : ) Don’t forget to mention the wedding theme in your invitations and include it into the dress code, use green colour as one of your wedding palette – and here it is – the most stylish wedding ever and the family budget is safe and sound : )

Have a look at these warm green colours this venue offers, I’m loving so much this feel of peace and freshness.

I wish you a very happy wedding planning,

Maria

xoxo

Last weekend I had a pleasure to photograph a very beautiful country wedding for Pauline and Matt. I was really looking forward to their day after photographing their engagement in Oxford last December. Pauline and Matt live in Oxfordshire surrounded by its gorgeous landscapes and wanted their day to be local, outdoor, eco-friendly, humanist, beautiful and relaxed. Take a peek at this gorgeous affair, while I’m working on the rest of it :

xoxo

Ceremony venue: Friars court

Reception venue: The Lamb at Buckland

Hair and make-up artist: Becky Sutton

Flowers: Passion 4 Flowers

Today I am thrilled to share with you a very special and extremely stylish affair: Ian and Benjamin’s London wedding!

I felt like I desperately wanted to photograph Ian and Ben’s day the moment I met them.  These guys are very artistic people as most of my amazing couples. Ian is a designer and they met on a stage (!) acting in theatre and the more we were talking the more it sounded like I their day was going to be stunning, but quite in a different way I am so used to.  Ian and Ben can definitely give a couple of very useful advices on how to style a wedding without mountains of flowers, props and wedding decorations with an unusual location (industrial park in this case), a stylish venue which continues minimalistic industrial theme inside it, a stunning London ceremony, champaign after it in a bright and cosy pub with quirky interior and of course with two impeccable tailor-made suits!

The day turned out not only to be very elegant but also exceptionally emotional. Even the photographer cried! Whoo!

I felt very privileged to be there to capture all these moments for Ian and Ben. Thank you so much for having me, guys!

The couple’s song was ‘Brighter Than the Sun’ by Smash cast and it cannot describe better the mood of the day:

Oh, this is how it starts, lightning strikes the heart
It goes off like a gun, brighter than the sun
Oh, we could be the stars, falling from the sky
Shining how we want, brighter than the sun

xoxo

Ceremony: Islington Town Hall

Venue: Bistroteque

Routemaster: TimeBus.co.uk

Karen and Mark got married in picturesque countryside in Surrey.

My favourite part of the day – preparations of the bride – was a truly special moment to photograph and reminded me of my own big day. Karen’s mum was assisting her little (and suddenly grown up!) daughter. It was very touching to see how she was helping her charming girl to change into the stunning bride.

The whole day was filled with a lot of fun and English rustic elegance. Lots of kids running around and doing funny things… as usual, I could not resist taking a couple of shots of each and every one of them : )

 I’d love to say a special thank you for being part of this wedding to Joe Miles, a very talented reportage photographer. It was very enjoyable to photograph alongside Joe, and I am looking forward to the next opportunity to work with him.

 Karen and Mark wanted their day to be relaxed, fun and beautiful and it is exactly the way it was. Love and excitement were in the air at the Barn at Bury Court on that day and  capturing Karen and Mark’s wedding was a pure pleasure.

xoxo

While in the next few weeks I will be going through my portfolio and publishing all those weddings I wanted to share with you some time ago, (and also the new ones) , I thought this blog post can also be interesting for those of my couples who are planning their engagement photo shoot in the upcoming months.

We moved to Richmond a couple of years ago and since then every time we plan a family day out it becomes an adventure full of exciting discoveries. Having thought we’ve seen it all now, we decided to spend a day in Ham last weekend. The Twickenham Ferry has opened for Summer season and it takes us less than an hour to get from home to my beloved Ham House. (All this including delicious breakfast in one of the local St Margaret’s cafes : ) yum!

As a wedding photographer I do not get many opportunities to spend weekends with my family, but when I do, we make the best of it.

Ham is one of my favourite places for a Summer weekend. No, it’s not a beach! : ) We love the rural atmosphere this part of London offers, it feels like we are miles away from the civilisation. We love to walk up the river to Teddington Lock. Even in hot July and even if the last rain was 4 weeks ago we have to wear wellies to make sure we do not get stuck in mud on our way to Teddington : ) wearing big wellies can look funny on a hot sunny day, but on this little river walk we meet many others equally well-equipped adventure-seekers.

Last Sunday, on the first true day of Spring we bumped into Petersham Nurseries. I have no idea how it happened that I’ve never been there before! It’s a temple of everything rustic, old, vintage, stylish and… garden of course : )

While my son was enjoying covering himself with red Petersham mud, and my husband patiently waiting for me to photograph every chandelier and every flower in the place, I was walking around the old glasshouses with my iPhone picturing for myself how fantastic a Spring engagement photo session would look there. Crowded on weekend afternoons Petersham Nurseries are all yours on weekday mornings. And I will be back there soon, if not for a photoshoot, than for one of their incredible rustic chandeliers …

I wish you a fabulous Summer!

Maria

]]> http://www.mariadefaci.com/blog/2013/04/discovering-richmond-petersham-nurseries/feed/ 0 http://www.mariadefaci.com/blog/2013/03/album-description-sharon-leo/ http://www.mariadefaci.com/blog/2013/03/album-description-sharon-leo/#comments Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:39:04 +0000 admin http://www.mariadefaci.com/?p=4913 12 x 12 inch finely printed Photobook. Hard cover, White Leather.

Well, I am actually going to photograph this wedding, so I am coming anyway.  But this is just such a cute idea to send your wedding photographer an invitation. Thank you guys! 

Congratulations once again on your upcoming wedding, I can’t wait to photograph it!

Here is what I brought back home from our December photoshoot in sleepy Sunday Oxford.

Happy Wedding Planning!

This morning I am posting for you one of my favourite weddings of the last year which I shot in Hampshire. It was a very sunny and an extremely windy day in summer. Sabrina and Alex got married in a tiny ancient church lost somewhere in the Hampshire fields. The celebration took place at the beautiful Alex’s parents home. I think Sabrina and Alex are really lucky to have this place for getting away from busy London and to have their family there.  The whole day was designed in details by the bride Sabrina and was very elegant, simple and chic. Sabrina was getting ready in the Lainston House Hotel, a stunning venue, where I would love to come back for photographing a wedding again.

I have posted lots of photos from this wedding, as I wanted to share with you this wonderful day in its entirety. (Have a look at the decoration of the dance floor at the marquee. I loved the black ceiling with warm fairy lights! ). Enjoy!

When you have 20 min time, one black mini dress, someone else’s amateur Nikon camera, a ribbon, a chandelier, a beautiful law student, a handsome rock singer, and freezing cold woods in haze as backdrop…. what do you get?

We got a gorgeous winter bouquet and many beautiful photos for a new love story. I would like to share with you a few of them today.

This winter I found an incredibly beautiful pine woods near my husband’s home town, Saragosse, in the heart of Spain. I cannot believe I did not know about its existence before! The moment I saw it I realised that I am not going back home without at least a few photographs there. The day I first walked in Pinares was very warm (+18 on the 27th of December!), sunny, and not a cloud on the sky, as it is usual in Spain. I did not have to think about the models, it was obviously going to be my beautiful sister-in-law and her lovely boyfriend Sergio. The night before the photoshoot I quickly adapted heavily cropped my father’s-in-law Nikon camera to my personal needs and read the manual.

The day of the photoshoot was exceptional. +4 outside, heavy haze in the woods, it even started raining … Not a sign of warm subtle colours of the sunny Mediterranean Pinares! Did it spoil our plans? Not a bit! One of the interesting things about photography is that it’s you who decide what weather it will be on your photographs.