Meet the York mum behind Amir Khan's viral £75K birthday bash photos

PHOTOGRAPHER Bhavna Barratt is used to photographing lavish Asian weddings so she felt quite at home snapping the extravagant £75,000 birthday party thrown by boxer Amir Khan and his wife Faryal for their one-year-old daughter, Alayna.

The pictures went viral and appeared in a string of publications from The Sun to Hello! and sparked a debate in the media around how much parents should spend on their child's birthday parties.

Faryal even appeared on ITV's Loose Women to discuss the subject.

The storm over the photos was a pleasant surprise to 38-year-old Bhavna, who lives just outside York with her husband Tom and two children Toby, aged three, and nine-month-old Bryn.

She had agreed to take photos of the party for the event planners and decorators – Opulence Events and Enchanted by Syma – and was delighted that Faryal liked her pictures so much that they were released to the media. Faryal posted Bhavna's picture on her Instagram account and drew more than 42,000 likes.

The coverage has been a great way to raise the profile of the Tanzanian-born photographer, who is self-taught and has been running her wedding photography business for seven years.

Bhavna said: " It's all gone a bit viral – it went crazy on social media. It's a bit of a milestone for me as a photographer. You want to be in Hello! where your work is being presented to a luxury clientele that is aspirational.

"It was lovely to see my work being published and recognised.

"I have been doing this since 2012 and it is hard work, but when you see your work presented like this there is a sense of satisfaction.

"It doesn't define my career, but it puts me out there.

"I don't necessarily want to be a celebrity photographer but I would like to be hired for high-end events and weddings. For those reasons it's quite nice to be in a magazine like Hello!"

The Khans have been criticised for spending so much on the party which was at the Macron Stadium in the boxer's hometown of Bolton. The theme was the Amazonian rainforest.

Bhavna said: "There was a stage with real banana trees at the side and a five or six tier cake. There were lots of real flowers with butterflies and birds hanging from them and wooden monkeys in the trees too. There were dancers in animal costumes and bouncy castles."

A buffet dinner was held in the evening and the table was set with lots of flowers and candelabras covered with moss.

Some photographers might have been intimidated by the scale of the event, but Bhavna took it in her stride.

"I am used to doing Indian weddings where there are 250 people and a stage and lots of decor. It's just about transferring skills to a different event," she said.

Bhavna does up to 24 weddings a year, across the UK and even overseas, specialising in Asian and fusion, or multi-cultural, weddings.

Often, these weddings can last between three and five days, and no expense is spared.

Unusually, Bhavna often takes her children to work with her: little Bryn is strapped to her back and pre-schooler Toby is often happy to play in the corner with Lego.

She always clears it with clients first, but adds that the children are welcome at Asian weddings and often the guests end up playing with them. She usually brings an assistant or nanny to help out.

Her own big day back in Tanzania in 2007 was a three-day affair, and Bhavna admits she never tires of weddings.

"They are such happy places to be and are so colourful and bright. The food is great and it is like being at a big party."

And, she says, the "happy chaos" of Asian weddings reminds her of her childhood, growing up in a large house with her extended family.

"Everybody ate together and everyone was around the house all the time. It is so different from life here where people ring you to ask if they can come round: there was none of that, people just turn up."

Weddings are a seasonal industry – Bhavna is working every weekend over summer – so in the off-season she keeps herself busy with other business pursuits.

She runs the popular online forum East Riding Mums – similar to York's Mumbler – and the digital networking group Successful Superwomen which has 2,500 members.