Last weekend I was booked to photograph the latter half of a wedding between Gemma and Luke, the reception/party in a marquee in a Gemma’s parents’ garden in Hampton, London. Why only this half of the wedding? Well, the first half, the bit with the vows, had taken place three months earlier in a freezing cold park in Niagara, Canada, with close family making up the mere seven guests in attendance.
To make it up to the rest of their family and friends they came back to London for one weekend only and I was there to capture the evening for them. And what an evening, with a beautiful marquee erected and decorated by Jenny Marks and her team at Complete Bliss, and utterly delicious catering provided Caper And Berry.
Gemma had specifically asked for reportage-style photography, which is my speciality of course! What that means is that I mainly spend the evening moving around the room looking for moments happening between guests without having them pose for me, so you get a real record of the evening and the mood rather than a series of posed, fixed-grin group shots of everyone.
Not that there’s anything wrong with a posed group shot here and there, of course! But I prefer to find the stories in my candid, unguarded shots of guests enjoying themselves without worrying about a lens in their face – which is why the tiny size and total silence of my wonderful X100S comes in very handy when it gets crowded and I’ve got no choice but to move into the heart of the crowd to find the moments – wielding the D700 with a 24-70mm can be a bit intimidating when it suddenly appears next to you clicking away!
I have to say, I do love my job on nights like this, when everyone is happy and enjoying themselves, particularly when the ‘best men’ took the floor to ritually humiliate Luke the groom. Good times are easy to photograph!
If you’re planning your own wedding and looking for a documentary-style London wedding photographer or destination wedding photographer I’d love to hear from you. Just get in touch to find out more and check my availability for your date. Speak to you soon!
