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Morning Peeps ;) What has this week been like? Rain, rain and more rain. I definitely picked right week and indeed evening to hold the Summer Soiree last week. Talking of which, it's about time I shared some of the near 1000 photographs that were taken on the evening with you :)
For those not in the know, The Summer Soiree was my first venture in to organising and hosting an industry networking event. Over 250 of the UK wedding industry's finest travelled from far and wide to join me at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Arts for an evening of glamour and sophisticated industry chat. Wellllllll, I call it a networking event, it was really much more like a party. A chance for all those of us who work so hard, mostly for ourselves, rarely with any days off, to let our hair down for just one evening. To have fun and forget about the photo and video editing, wedding planning and latest product design for just a few hours and revel in the company of our peers; accomplished and new-to-the-scene Photographers, designers and their assistants, bloggers, stylists, dressmakers, and two very well behaved little girls, in dresses that were the same hue of pale blue pretty the party host was wearing :)
We all converged onto the Gateshead Quayside where the sun shone down on us warmly and reflected pretty twinkly lights back off the surface of the River Tyne.
Love My Dress Wedding Blog - Photography Copyright (c) 2011, Helen Russell & Katy Lunsford
Now listen. 1000 photos is a lot of photographs. And I spent most of last night trying to whittle them down to the few I wanted to blog. But it was HARD! So very hard. So, I have decided the best way forward would be to blog the images in 3 parts; 'Behind-the-scenes', 'Setup/Guests Arriving' and 'Party Time!' I'll be publishing all 3 blog posts before mid-day today, to ensure you have a whole lunch time full of viewing pleasure :)
Thank you so much to the two ladies who worked so hard capturing these images, Helen Russell and Katy Lunsford - Brides please look them up now if you are still looking for a wedding photographer...
I would go as far to say, the evening has already become a little bit 'legendary'. And I don't mean that to sound pretentious either, I really mean it. Indeed, it was something so special; the atmosphere was magical. Making my way through the main function room in my gorgeous baby blue tulle dress and seeing all the guests delight at the evening unfolding about them filled my heart with happiness and satisfaction. All the hard work had paid off. I felt immense pride for the many suppliers who had supported me and transformed the blank canvass room into something of a vintage haven. Every last little detail had been considered. It was perfect.
Many of us that evening had only ever been acquainted through Twitter and Facebook, and yet the evening had an air of a high-school reunion about it. Old friends catching up, new friendships formed, arms flung open on approach to the recognisable twitter handle printed out on the fancy name badges ; "it's YOU!", merry embraces, squeels of giddy delight as Twitter pals hooked up, laughter filling every crevice and corner of the spaces we were occupying and floated up along the river to join revellers of an all together different celebration.
Elaborate floral fancies met our eye level and made us gasp. Twinking and sparkling every where you looked and vintage styling to make you swoon set the scene. The cool notes of a jazz trio performing on stage flirted with the warm summer breeze, before the Vintage 78 DJs got everyone into the mood with their glorious gramophone records. A burlesque artist posed in feathers to be painted live, whilst another took to the stage to deliver an exquisite and erotic teaser dance. My guests were delighted. Oooh La-La! Petals were strewn all over and the staff at the bar worked like hounds mixing cocktails ('Baltic Bombshell' anyone?} and serving champagne all evening.
It was a brilliant night, as anyone there will testify. The atmosphere could not have been better and I thank all and everyone who was present for sprinkling their own little bit of magic and adding to my memory of a party I hope continues to make people smile and giggle for a good long while yet :)
So us bloggers usually post the 'behind the scenes' photos after you've seen the main photographs. But I wanted to tell a story today and so it made sense to start that story at the very beginning. These few shots here are me shortly before I arrived at the venue, but the rest of the images in this post show what was happening whilst 250 people gravitated towards Newcastle Upon Tyne and Gateshead via rail, road and air, on one extremely warm and sunny afternoon on 3rd August 2011...
