CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Yes it's that time of year again!

Thinking of Christmas?

With Nikki McLeod Photography, you can take advantage at this time of year with special vouchers for past valued clients.

There is a 10% discount card, and a special on Christmas cards.

If you are interested in receiving either or both of these cards, please email me your snail mail address and I shall post them onto you!


PS/ For those wedding clients in their 6 month period of ordering, if you require your wedding photography order back for Christmas, orders are required by the following dates;


You need to order & pay for your order before the dates stated

- Aussie and Viva albums; November 1st

- A la carte albums/parent albums; November 15th

- Individual prints, canvas etc; November 30th

Parent albums must be ordered with or after the bridal album.

ANY ORDER RECEIVED AFTER DECEMBER 1ST IS NOT GUARANTEED TO BE WITH YOU FOR CHRISTMAS! That includes pre-paid packages, like Aussie, French and Viva, that just need your file numbers.

DON'T DILLY-DALLY!!!

Hilary and Steven's wedding

Culross Abbey has always been one venue I have wanted to shoot a wedding at; it looks just a stunning venue. And when you are lucky to get a beautiful sunny day in October for a wedding there, it all mounts up to a glorious day for the happy couple, which in this instance was Hilary and Steven. Only thing that is a BIG shame about shooting there is the fact the photographer is not allowed in the church at all when the bride walks in until the couple walk out again. Oh well, so many good photographic opportunities lost.............

I haven't had a chance to work on any of their Abbey shots yet but here are a couple from their reception venue, the Garvock House Hotel in Dunfermline.
From beautiful natural sunlight...........














to funky artificial tree lighting!!

Suzanne and Warren's wedding

I am not religious, but someone somewhere was looking down on us yesterday and blessing us with glorious weather for Suzanne and Warren's beautiful wedding in Edinburgh. The bride arrived at Greyfriars Church in raindrops and stepped out with her new husband into glorious sunshine. Quick formals, before an amazing trip to a loch beside Arthurs Seat, where the swans swan, the sun shone, and the couple just hugged and kissed and laughed all the time. The light was amazing, and it was great to have another long veil! And this time we had amazing wind too!!




Infact the first thing that Suzi said to me when she stepped out the car at the church, was "look Nikki, a long veil! I read on your blog you like them!" (Nice to know that someone does read this blog!)














At the Radisson SAS on the Royal Mile, we had some glorious natural light coming in from the windows. Suzi was just stunning and both her and Warren were fantastic for giving me so much time for photos.

Jill and Craig's wedding

Jill and Craig were married at one of my favourite venues Forrester Park Golf Resort near Dunfermline. I have been there many times now and still love it; there are just so many great places for photos, inside and out!

The weather was kind to us on the day of Jill and Craig's wedding, though the ground was too wet for us to go out on the golf buggies. But we still got outside for some fabby shots of the couple who were crazy with and about each other, and it shows in the shots!

Nikki and Fides rocked Switzerland!!

Here I am in Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, absolutely exhausted, but still buzzing from a fantastic weekend with Fides of www.weddings-in-style.ch

Two great weddings, well over a thousand images in my roller-bag so I'm gonna be busy with editing them, plus my own clients to see who are desperate to see their shots from the past month or so, plus lab work, plus album design..................


I need to sleep first!

Caroline and Joseph's wedding

It is always nice to book a wedding on the recommendation of a previous bride; Caroline and Joseph booked me on the word-of-mouth recommendation of Pamela and Darren Black who were married last year at the Keavil.

Caroline and Jo had a lovely ceremony at the Pitbauchlie House Hotel in Dunfermline, and it was nice for me to have a really local wedding (ie only 10 minutes drive!) for a change. I love to travel but it is nice to just jump up the road every now and then.

We had amazing natural light on the day; I took this shot in the bridal suite and Caroline just jumped on the bed and totally worked it for the camera!

And yet I just HAD to ask the receptionist to move in order to get this shot behind the reception desk; totally using the artificial light to great advantage.

Emma and Colin must be one of the quickest couples to order their album; they viewed their photos at the studio Friday night, today I received a cheque for a Viva album and CD only 4 days later! I am so excited about the new 'Viva' album; it gives me carte blanche to design an album with no input from the clients at all, and there are SO many fab shots with Colin and Emma's wedding I will have difficulty in choosing!

Shoes!!

A thread on a digital wedding photographers forum about high heels made me realise I live my fetish for high heels through my brides. I have some weirdy condition which makes me doublejointed and all my ligaments are looser than they should be, so I can't wear high heels or I would constantly go over my ankles.

So I LOVE to photograph my brides' shoes; this is one of my favourite shots of recent, from Emma and Colin's wedding;


Talking of Emma and Colin, the lovely couple returned from Antigua looking mightly brown and refreshed after their honeymoon. They came to the studio last night to see their portfolio of their wedding day and they loved the results!! I then got another email from the lovely mother of the Groom Mrs Davidson (senior!) this evening;

"hi nikki,colin and emma popped in last night to show us the cd of the wedding.Fabulous/funny/and every bit what we expected and far far more.

I will be sending your web page details to relatives/friends all over the globe who are waiting with great anticipation to viewing the happy day.

Thank you very much for all your time and patience in providing such wonderful photos of a very very happy day.

from Liz/Jim Davidson(now Davidson senior). "

Lisa and Colin's wedding

Lisa and Colin were lucky to have a glorious day for their wedding; and Lisa was just stunning in her halterneck dress. I loved the colour of her brother's bedroom wall, when she was getting into her dress; it gave me some funky natural but contemporary shots! I love it when I can get shots like these without actually having to pose anyone, these shots for me are always cool!

I always say to my couples that despite what you may think, you don't actually want a REALLY sunny day on your wedding day. From a photographic point of view, it gives you harsh shadows and makes people squint, so especially for the group formals you have to find shadowed areas. But when it comes to the bridal portraits, I like to work with the sun (when we get it!) rather than against it, and I knew when I saw the length of Lisa's veil that I was gonna pull a cool shot out of the bag! Note to future brides; I LOVE LONG VEILS!

A great party was held at night and fantastic photographic results are in order! Enjoy Mexico, guys!

Sally and Phil's wedding

It is a honour to be asked (and paid!) to photograph a wedding and therefore all weddings are special, but occasionally for personal reasons, some weddings are extra-special.

Sally and Phil's wedding was one of these extra-special weddings, as Sally is actually a very good friend of mine here in the Bay.

Sally and I met at antenatal classes in the autumn of 2004 and we both gave birth to our children within hours of each other on 22nd November 2004. Along with Diane and her twins born a couple of hours previous to Jack and Rosemary, we have all kept in contact and watched our children grow up together.

When Sally announced that she was FINALLY going to get married to her long term partner Phil this year, I was over the moon for them both and helped Sally with some of her wedding plans, including visiting a wedding fayre in Edinburgh to look for wedding photographers. It was a great honour when she then turned around and asked if I would photograph their big day!

And what a big day it was! In resplendent red, Sally struck a glorious note in her Chinese tea dress, Phil looked dapper in his suit and Rosemary was just gorgeously cute as usual.

And at night, my wee man had a ball, in his kilt!

Lovely comment from America - {blush}

I received Kelli and Euan's order for their wedding photos this morning, via their lovely mother. American Kelli and Scottish Euan had the most stunning wedding at Dalhousie at the beginning of the year and it was wonderful to meet the american side of the family after so many emails back and forth! Euan is the brother of Jenna whose wedding I shot a couple of years ago, whose picture I use a lot; the one of them in front of the loch at Culcreuch.

At the end of the order from Cindi Mother of the Bride, was this lovely comment.

"Thank you again for your beautiful, outstanding work. I wish we could have afforded a copy of all of them - You do fantastic work. Just Amazing. You made the day wonderful and it will be more than a mere memory in our minds - if the photos just look a fraction as beautiful as the internet shows them and your sneaky snaps are as cute as they look - I think we found the perfect photographer - although we had to choose from many miles away!!! You were great to work with and we consider you a new friend."

Kirsty and Andrew's wedding

In stark contrast within 24 hours, Kirsty and Andrew had fantastic sunny weather for their St. Andrews wedding. They even gave me an hour of bridal contemporary photography by walking along to St Andrews Castle, and we enjoyed the ruins and the sun. The day finished with a stunning sunset, which we nicked onto the Links for a quick shot of.

Gail and Andrew's wedding

Gail and Andrew from Glasgow chose to have their wedding at the beautiful Barony Castle in the Scottish Borders town of Peebles. Unfortunately the weather was not kind to us, but we still managed to get some fab shots, and it was such a great day all round. Gail and Andrew were such a fun couple, always laughing and giggling for the camera, it made my job very easy.

I'm going to Switzerland!

I am SO excited! I am going to assist and second shoot at 2 weddings in Switzerland next month!

On the on-line photographers forum I am part of, I have "met" some lovely people; one being Fides in Switzerland who does amazing work http://www.weddings-in-style.ch/

She was asked by a couple over there to photograph a wedding but Fides was going to be without her assistant husband on that day, so I was asked to come over and be that assistant and second shooter!!

And Fides says she has a wedding 2 days later around Lake Geneva and I can be assistant/second shooter at that one too!

Flights were booked tonight, so excited as I have never been to Switzerland before, and I am dying to meet Fides; we have talked several times on the phone so I KNOW she will be a lovely person!


And tonight I received a lovely email from the Mother of the Groom from Emma and Colin's wedding;

"hi nikki couldn't believe you had two pictures of the happy couple on visiting your page for prices this afternoon.they are fab i think we are going to have a hard job picking some.thank you for making us so at ease when you were taking the photos not an easy thing to do.
looking forward with great anticipation to viewing all your pictures.thankyou again.
[colins mum]."

It's so nice to get lovely comments like this!

Emma and Colin's wedding

I KNEW Emma and Colin's wedding was going to be gorgeous; good-looking couple, cracking contemporary venue, so all we needed was good weather!

Bah humbug! Why do we have to have Scottish weather!? We did manage to dodge the rain for some formals and bridal shots outside, but no walk along the beach which was sad............

Emma and Colin were married at Orroco Pier in South Queensferry, a contemporary hotel, restaurant and bar, which has a cracking view out on the River Forth and the Forth Bridges.

We did manage to get amazing contemporary shots outside the toilets of all places, I had spied the amazing lighting in the corridor at the recce I did with the couple and knew we would get great shots there regardless of the weather.

Their wedding was beautiful, Emma had the most amazing slinky dress (oh to be young and skinny again!) and I am sure they are currently having a BALL in Antigua!

Good weather tomorrow please!

Here's hoping for good weather tomorrow for the wedding of Emma and Colin, as we have the use of a gorgeous beach as well as a contemporary hotel for photos!

Shooting in America!

Been busy recently, too busy to log into here! But now for an update!

Just back from America, where I got the opportunity to second-shoot a wedding with a top-class US female photographer called Laura Novak of Laura Novak Photography.

I am a member of a wedding photographers forum on the Net and have come across some excellent female wedding photographers around the world, whose work I admire; for example;

Laura Novak Photographyhttp://www.novakphotography.com
Allegra's Studio http://www.allegrasstudio.com
Susan Stripling Photography http://www.susanstripling.com
Jessica Claire Photography http://www.jcsphoto.com

While Graham my husband was working in Boston, MA, I thought it would be great to organise a trip out to see him, and shoot a wedding with Laura who is in Philidelphia, just an hour's flight from Boston.

What a FAB day I had with Laura.

The wedding was just a riot! On the beach, the photographers joined the rest of the congregation and left their shoes at the beachside and shot the whole wedding bare-foot! I fried alive, it was so hot, I was glad I had put on sun-screen! The couple Shannon and Bill were just the lovliest couple going, and their wedding was stunning! I cannot WAIT to see the final results!

Before the wedding, Laura did a beach photo session with Jackman, myself and my husband Graham. Look at this!

and this one is one of my favourites! Isn't my boy cute?

Amanda and Graeme's wedding

I love my job! I love weddings! I love gorgeous weddings like this past weekend's one, where Amanda and Graeme were married in Kirkcaldy then had a reception in Burntisland. But in between the couple gave me plenty of photographic opportunites with group formals taken at Beveridge Park, then we visited Petticur Bay in Kinghorn. Amanda was so up for going down the beach barefoot, in full bridal gear, Graeme in full kilt attire, even with lots of people sunbathing around them! The couple then got some time together while walking from the beach to the pier where we got some cracking portraits.

Here is a little sneak peak of some of the day's photos.
http://www.nmcleodphotography.co.uk/amandaslideshow2.exe

Another wedding booked!

Received a contract through the post today for a wedding next year.

Lesley and Iain are getting married at the Redhurst Hotel in Giffnock next August, and after reading several recommendations about me on the wedding forum Hitched they have booked me for their big day!

Well, off today to a big wedding in Kirkcaldy, where I really hope the weather holds up as it sounds like there are lots of fabby things going to happen.

I shall post a teaser within 24 hours, and also catch up with some of the recent weddings I have done.

New weddings booked!

Suzanne and Ian are getting married at Forresters Park at Cairneyhill, one of my favourite venues; we used it for Jack’s Naming Day reception! It is just a gorgeous venue and Robert really knows how to look after everyone on the day.

I am so looking forward to Gail and Andrew’s wedding in September this year, as it is at Barony Castle near Peebles. This is a venue I have been to before for Leanne and Paul’s wedding 2 years ago; it is such a cool venue, especially if the weather is good and we can get outside into the beautiful gardens with the river and the pagoda, oh so many choices!

Lesley and Chris are going to have a fab wedding at Garvock House next April, which will be a lovely local wedding for me, and no doubt, a lot of fun!

Julie and Paul are going to be married at a very special place for me; Balbirnie House in Markinch. Special, why? Well, Graham and I were married there ourselves nearly 7 years ago! I still get goosebumps every single time I visit there.

June and Adam from Olympia USA are coming over from the States to get married at Arnot Tower Gardens which I believe is a stunning venue; booking your wedding photography over the Net is easy with Nikki McLeod Photography, I have photographed several weddings from couples coming from abroad.

Jen and Jonathan are going to have the most amazing wedding next May at St Salvadores Chapel in St Andrews, with a beautiful reception at the Old Course Hotel. I am so excited about their reception, as they are having a fireworks display at the end of the day!

I also recently booked Sarah and Andrew’s November wedding at the very contemporary venue of Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh, a science museum with Arthur’s Seat as a backdrop! This will be a very different wedding for me, and Sarah and Andrew are just daft about each other!

Gail and Derek have booked me to photograph their wedding also in November at the Royal College of Physicians, a venue I have been to before, and they have even used one of my shots in their promo brochure! It’s a real classy venue, with stunning architecture, and I am sure I will have a great day with Gail and Derek.

I have also got the wedding of Leanne and Allan booked, for the City Chambers in Dunfermline and the King Malcolm Hotel. The City Chambers is a place I know well; we even used that venue for Jack’s Naming Day ceremony last November.

New price list!

Well the first thing I should tell everyone is that is a new price list; which should have gone up at the beginning of the month but being on holiday, I didn't get a chance to do it.

But it's up now, with slight price increases in places, and some differences (in parent albums for example) and a new package and album for the A La Carte package.