Sunshine outside my window dear reader, excuse me if I get just a little excited about that, I've heard the temperatures might get close to dizzingly high (for March) today so I'm going to celebrate that, I've also just been informed that it's the International Day of Awesomeness today so go forth and be that my lovelies!

We haven't been feeling so awesome in the Charlton house unfortunately, I came down with flu for the first time since 2008, I am never ever ill so it was a bit of a shock to spend the entire weekend in bed and now Abigail has fully fledged flu, we are not amused, I am hopefully on the mend though.

So here's my weekly recap of what I've been up to personally and professionally.

On Monday I was just happy that it was springlike and sunny in the garden and everything seems to be green again which makes me happy.

I also noticed that it's my favourite time of year for really noticing the golden hour, it's around this time of year when although it happens all year round you really seem to notice it after bland winter days with no sunshine.  Obviously it's a great time to take a selfie ;)

On Tuesday I got very excited because of the arrival of this, sadly the arrival of the lens I ordered has been delayed until the 25th of March so currently I have my pile of new memory cards, batteries, a new double rapid strap, a whole new camera set up and no blooming lens, there are a couple of other lenses I want to add to the Fuji X-Pro1 collection anyway though so I'm hoping to pick up another this week, eventually it's my goal to have the 18mm, 27mm and 35mm which will sit nicely alongside my Canon selection of 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm, I shoot all primes because they're light and they're fast glass, I rarely use f3.5 or above and most of the lenses I own will happily go to f1.4, I actually think if you're just starting out in photography the glass you buy is a lot more important than the camera body, you'll replace that many times anyway but your lenses will stay with you forever.

On Wednesday I met up with one of my best photography friends in the whole world Jamie and we had a mooch around the Baltic (there was nothing on at all) but we did go over to the Side Gallery and saw a wonderful exhibition about the fall of the Berlin Wall (sort of) anyway, I loved the images, I loved the black and whites and the juxtaposition of some of the images was beautiful, go see All That Falls while it's still on.

I also received a delivery from Amazon which was full of inspirational books, if you want to know more about the laws of attraction or if you practice them and want continued inspiration these are the titles to read.

Clearly there were a lot of hours in Wednesday as I also managed to go to see Looby horse riding in the evening, she's really confident now and loves those horses so much, apparently all we have to do is find some land to stable a horse and her granddad is going to buy her one, she's a lucky little girl, no one ever offered to buy me a horse!!

Thursday I went off to Saltwell Park to meet with my favourite Welsh clients, sadly I can't share images of their beautiful little girl because they want to minimise her digital footprint which is fine by me, my clients privacy is of the utmost importance!

So you'll just have to settle for my instagram, perfect photography day it was.

I also met with a couple planning their 2015 wedding and had a great meeting with a lovely friend who I hadn't seen for ages and there's a little wedding photography prospect in there too so Thursday was definitely a good day.

Friday I was feeling snuffly, little did I know that by Friday night I would be ill with a capital I!

I went to Tynemouth on Friday for a 1-2-1 workshop with aspiring kids photographer Stacey, I offer 1-2-1 workshops to help other photographers with the fundamentals of running a successful photography business, over the last 8 years I've dealt with most situations and I've also gone from a teeny tiny business to the behemoth it is today, I've experience in all areas and have coached other businesses on all kinds of things, my speciality is Facebook marketing and social media, if you would like to have a 1-2-1 session it's only £150 and I promise I'll add value to your business.

Here's one of the little models I arranged for Stacey on Friday afternoon

and finally here's what's happening next weekend and a few photos from last weekends sessions, if you would like to book a photo shoot with me or a 1-2-1 or perhaps meet me about shooting your wedding you can contact me through my website, email or my Facebook page

Whatever you get up to this week make sure it's a good one!

The wedding of Susan and Jonathan, County Thistle Hotel in Newcastle

you remember that I told you about shooting 2 weddings in a weekend, well this is the second, Susan and Jonathan contacted me from South Africa, flew in and met me and then flew out to Ireland where they're currently working on HBO's Game of Thrones, Jonathan is in charge of visual effects and Susan works in the costume department, quite cool jobs really, obviously not quite as cool as mine though, haha!

Susan and Jonathan have had a whirlwind romance, fallen madly in love and within a year gotten married, a couple after my own heart as hubby and I met in the October and got married the next April.  You see if I haven't mentioned it before (I have a billion times) I believe in true love and romance and I absolutely love it when you get couples who are so in love that all they want to do at their wedding is spend as much time together as possible.

Most of the wedding festivities were at the beautiful County Thistle hotel in Newcastle where they had exclusivity, a truly amazing day and if you're considering this venue let me tell you it's probably the best wedding food I've eaten in 5 years and I've eaten a lot of wedding breakfasts.  We were lucky enough to be sat with some of the Game of Thrones guys so we had a great time during dinner.  For this wedding I was lucky enough to aquire the talent and services of Jamie Emerson to second shoot, Jamie is one of my bestest buddies and shot my very own vow renewal, when we shoot together it's fun and I think we work so well together, if you're planning your wedding you should really ask me about having Jamie second shoot at your wedding, for his time and talent he's an amazing bargain if I'm honest!

and so on with the photos from one of the most enjoyable weddings I've ever shot.

For some reason Jonathan reminds me of Robson Green, I think it might be the humour, he really is a funny guy!

after the vows they did a pinkie swear, which was so sweet, everyone giggled including me!

a few essential group shots, as ever I kept them to a minimum but all brides and grooms agree it's nice to have a record of the guests attending their wedding, even if you can never get everyone to look in the right direction!

and then off to my favourite graffiti wall for some cool contemporary portraits 

their cake was amazing, it even had it's own fountain!!

how cute is this young chap? you know I love weddings where there's plethora of cute kids

these few shots were taken from where I was sitting for dinner, every time I looked over and grabbed my camera they only had eyes for each other, so completely and utterly in love these two!

an impromptu speech from Jonathans daughter gave me a lump in my throat and then they started arguing over who was supposed to be saying what and I cracked up, hilarious!

first dance time and I'm so proud of this one, not the easiest technique to master and let me tell you it's always a little serendipitous but worth it!

Susan and Jonathan emailed me a few days ago to say how much they loved their photographs but seriously I had an easy job documenting a couple this much in love.