A stroll on a sunny spring evening through Bournemouth gardens is such a treat, the sun glances through the trees and bamboo with its golden glow creating patches of light everywhere, some of these patches are easy to spot others aren’t.

Shelly and Rob are getting married this year at the Kings Arms in Christchurch, a venue I visited for the first time last year. I’m really looking forward to returning armed with more ideas for the venue than I have time to shoot. Both Shelley and Rob could see the benefit of an engagement photo shoot, it gives us a chance to bond before the wedding day and gives them a chance to see how I work. An invaluable experience that helps the wedding day run a little smoother.

We spent this early spring afternoon chasing the setting suns rays through the garden, watching for these little glowing patches of illumination makes all the difference to a photograph as I’m sure you can see in the photographs that follow, the sun was dipping fast so we had to move quickly just like on the wedding day, it was a good experience for all three of us.

Shelley and Rob are such calm characters, they listened and understood what I was trying to do even though being photographed is not, like most people, their favourite thing. The evening was actually freezing cold, to the point, I eventually struggled with the settings on my camera due to numb fingers, if it wasn’t for the scarf in these pictures you’d never know. Shelley was wise enough to use her makeup trial with Amazing Face on the same day, I think that the natural look Caroline has done is brilliant, as always. Roll on the wedding day, I can’t wait!