Being a part of a very special wedding is a wonderful feeling…Dee and Peter’s wedding was just about as special as it can get…a wonderful day from just after noon, when I arrived at Dee’s home to photograph the last minute perparations of the bride and bridesmaids. Mike arrived shortly afterwards at the wedding breakfast venue to photograph the cake, flowers and table settings before high-tailing it to the church to meet up with Pete and his party.
The bride looked fantastic in a heavily embroidered bridal gown and sparkling Swarowski crystal jewellery.
Dee absolutely loves her sunset colours, so the bridesmaids wore shimmering sheer fabric which changed from pinks through reds to orange depending on how the light caught it. The flowers were magnificent and we especially appreciated the inclusion of orchids in the bridal bouquet (naturally they’re our favourite flowers!!!) from local floral designers Wild Orchids. The cake was also decorated with matching flowers.
The marriage service at Saddleworth Church was such a happy event, made lighthearted as well as solemn by Father Duncan. Mike took up a position at congregation level and I found myself a good vantage point above the bride and groom in the balcony.
The happy couple went on to Saddleworth Golf Club for the wedding breakfast and evening reception.
As a “thank you” to the bride and groom, we had prepared a pre-wedding montage from photographs that we took at Dovestones a few weeks before and this was mounted so that guests could sign it on arrival at the reception venue.
We stayed throughout, taking a break from work to enjoy the wedding breakfast along with Dee and Peter’s guests and then photographing right through the speeches, the cartoonist sessions, the dancing and karaoke until we, too, were exhausted. But what an enjoyable day!!!!
It’s impossible to choose just a few images to give justice to such a day and we did find it difficult editing the pictures down to a manageable number for our presentation to the bride and groom, but below are just a few of our photographs as a sampler.
Click thumbnails to enlarge:
Technical notes: Technically the photography of the ceremony was challenging (to say the least), as flash photography had been banned until after the signing of the register and the church is very dark inside. Typical exposures from the balcony were 1/25 second at f/2.8 and 1000 ISO. In order to be able to quickly reposition myself without the clatter of moving a tripod, I chose to hand-hold, as did Mike below. Whilst this creates even more of a challenge in terms of image stabilisation, it does allow greater flexibility. My camera has a stabilised sensor, which gives me a 3 to 4 stop advantage in adverse conditions. Digital noise was kept to a minimum by ensuring accurate exposure (noise is always worse if you underexpose and have to pull up the images in processing) and by giving some noise reduction treatment to the RAW files during processing. We always shoot in RAW format as it gives us so much more control at the processing stage.
Perhaps the most challenging photography of the day was recording the evening dancing. Low light, moving subjects and vibration from the floor meant that sharp photographs become even more difficult to achieve. We both decided to use a little bounced fill flash, but carefully balanced with the ambient lighting so that it did not destroy the feeling of the disco lighting. In such conditions there will always be a lot of wastage, but we were pleased with the results…
So were the bride and groom!!! and that’s the most important thing.
Chris