Those nice chaps at Pink Weddings gave us the nod this afternoon. PinkWeddingStory is now an official Pink Approved photographer for Kent, Sussex, Essex and London.

(Image courtesy of GreenHybrid)

So the California Supreme court finally overturned a ban on same sex marriages on Thursday.

Despite the displeasure of Arnold Swarzenegger (who has twice vetoed bills to allow gay marriage) and the expected protests from “families” that this is an “outrage” they ruled that the ban did in fact breach their sacred constitution. So…..looks like they are going to change their constitution!

Seriously - looks like pressure groups are going to pump millions of dollars into fiddling with the constitution to bring the ban back in.

“We’re obviously very disappointed in the decision,” said Glen Lavy, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which is pushing for the stay. “The remedy is a constitutional amendment.”

Yep, don’t like the law then change it. When you find it conflicts with the constitution….change that. And in case you have forgotten the whole sorry saga then proposition 22 in 2000 won with 61% of the vote and the handy strapline “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California”

So, if like Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi you want your union legally recognised then here are 3 handy tips:

1. Do it soon - chances are California is going to overturn the overturned ruling again pretty soon.
2. Come to England - better still Kent. It’s gorgeous here and the natives are friendly.
3. Hire PinkWeddingStory for all your pictures. You know it makes sense. Kent, South East England, San Farncisco. If Easyjet can get us there we’ll be there!

Interesting fact: You think this is crazy? California legalised inter racial marriages less than 60 years ago…….yep, there’s some educating to do.

OK this one is weird. Just plain weird.

According to the BBC “the term lesbian is now widely used to describe homosexual women”. Erm , yeah…….

So you might be interested in hearing about the man who wants to stop gay women calling themselves lesbians….

He believes that it violates the “human rights” of the islanders of Lesbos. And “disgraces them around the world”.

And no, I’m not making this up. It’s all on the BBC’s website.

So what do you think? violating human rights and disgracing people or a storm over nothing? That’s what the comments box is for.

Wow, I’ve never known a start to the year like it! 2009 is already booking pretty solidly - and we’re not done with 2008 yet!

The wedding photography business runs in annual cycles and right now we are very much in the booking “season”. The last week has seen the trickle of enquiries that’s been building for the last couple of months turn into a flood with literally dozens of enquiries per week.

It’s probably because right now, according to Google, our sister site, MyWeddingStory is the number one wedding photography business in Kent. PinkWeddingStory is also heading for the number one spot for civil partnership photography nationwide!

All of this means I’m even busier than usual meeting clients, discussing photography and taking bookings. I aim to return all calls and emails on the same business day but if I don’t get back to you until the next day I hope you’ll understand.

The strange thing is that there are still dates left for 2008 - so if you haven’t booked a photographer for your 2008 event yet then you might want to check my availability soon. And if your ceremony is in 2009 then I’d get your skates on - you can check availability in the same way.

1. Weddings - really. Lots of people get married in the winter. I just booked one yesterday for 30th January 2009.
2. Design albums - many people get married in summer and most of them try to get their albums ready for Christmas. If they miss the cutoff then I’ll be designing their album in January.
3. Meet clients. January is the crazy busy time for bookings. The coffee machine is doing overtime in my gallery right now.
4. Go to wedding fairs. See number 4 - I’m also out on the road meeting people.
5. TalkRocket. This is a brand new website I just set up. Lots of people want to learn how to get the best out of their new digital cameras. On that site you’ll find news, reviews and best of all tutorials. So if you want to learn how I get the great pictures at your wedding then drop in to TalkRocket.
6. Holidays and sleep - because there’s never time in summer!

Some of the things that counted in our favour were

1. We are carbon neutral. I might go so far as to say the MyWeddingStory is the only carbon neutral wedding photography business in Kent. That may be true of all the UK.

2. Of course we use recycled office products wherever possible - paper, laser toner, packaging, whatever.

3. Growing our own food didn’t hurt either

And what’s all that got to do with wedding photography? It wasn’t part of a promotion or marketing drive - it’s just something we do. But it does give me a snappy strap line:

MyWeddingStory - because your wedding story needn’t cost the earth…