Today I had the pleasure of taking photos at the wedding of Dawn and Steve at Rochester Registry office. It was a little trek for me now that I’m based in London, and I wasn’t sure that the weather was going to hold, but it stayed dry for us all.

I’ve never been to Rochester before; it’s a really beautiful and picturesque place. The Registry Office is in the old part of the town, near to both the Cathedral, and the castle. The plan had been to take group photos in the Cathedral gardens, but as it’s currently covered in scaffolding we changed location to outside the castle. Unfortunately we had to share the space in front of the castle with another wedding party, but after a chat with the other photographer we decided that we could both get what we wanted without getting in the other person’s way. It meant that some of my photos were a little more tightly cropped than I would normally go for (such as one of the couple just about to kiss), and with the D700 viewfinder only showing 97% of the final image, I had to do a little post-processing at the edges of a couple of images.

All in all though, it was a lovely day, and great to be a part of it.

To find more information about the wedding photography services that I offer, please visit www.srphotos.co.uk/weddings

One of the many things that I enjoy about photographing weddings is the opportunity to see how creative the bride and groom have been with regards to their cake. I’ve seen a whole range from very traditional cakes through to a tower of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, with a lego bride and groom at the top.

You see, it’s not just the cake itself where the bride and groom can get creative; it’s also what they choose to put on top. A few of my favourites from weddings I’ve covered (in no particular order):

• Bride and groom figures in front of a cup cake – there were individual cup cakes at everyone’s seat at the reception in addition to the main cake.
• Individually made and iced cup cakes with a selection of designs – the bride had made them all herself
• A camper van with bride and groom – a remarkable likeness to the bride and groom. It fit in with their wedding colour scheme, and their honeymoon was travelling around in a camper van
• Ball and chain around the groom’s foot, with the bride holding the key – I’ve had a few enquiries as to where the couple got that cake topper…!

It turns out that there are actually several companies which provide cake toppers, whether they be off the shelf toppers, or custom ones for your day: CakeTopper.co.uk, NoveltyCakeToppers.co.uk and CelebrationToppers.co.uk to name but a few. From comments on a couple of the sites, it’s clear that they’re very popular.

My favourite is still the lego bride and groom on the Krispy Kremes though!

Unfortunately this will have to be a really quick post, as I’m in the middle of moving into London, but I just had to share the following, that I saw as part of a very geeky wedding:


do {
have_and_hold();
love_and_cherish();
} until (death==true);


That novel take on the traditional vows really appeals to my geek side. Prior to seeing this, the best geeky thing that I’d seen at a wedding was an inscription of “Wifi” (similar to “Wifey”…geddit?) inside the bride’s wedding ring.

I love being a geek!

One of the standard wedding photos that’s taken at most weddings is that of the bride and groom walking down the aisle. It’s something that as a photographer you get used to doing – it’s not the simplest thing to capture as the couple are constantly moving, but it’s not too tough. Apart from if you too are moving.

The way that I normally take the shot of a couple walking down the aisle at the end of the service is to get to the back of the church in the centre of the aisle with a zoom lens. This way I don’t have to move, and I have plenty of options for wide angle through to close up. As the couple then pass me, I step to the side, letting them past, which also gives me an option of getting a shot of the couple leaving the church. It also gives guests a chance to take their own photos of the happy couple without having me blocking the way. But why am I telling you this? Surely taking a photo of a couple walking up an aisle isn’t rocket science?

Try telling that to the hapless photographer in this video.

To have both cameras going under water is just unlucky – let’s hope the photographer had another backup camera. The person videoing the whole incident has the right idea; staying still and using the zoom. It’s never a good idea to walk backwards whilst taking photos in any situation, unless you have someone watching your back. For one thing you don’t have stability as you’re moving, but the main thing is that you are concentrating most of your efforts on what is in front of you, whilst ignoring what might be behind. Poor guy.

One of the things that I loved about photography when I first took it up properly was the ability to either focus on the detail in an image, or focus on the overall image. What better way to do the latter than with a silhouette; drawing the eye to form rather than intricacies.

Strangely, it’s mainly my earlier images, such as chimneys at sunset, and a person at night that use silhouettes. It’s something that seems to come slightly more naturally to me when I have a film camera in my hand. The most recent silhouette photo I’ve took was back at Christmas; a wintery beach scene, but before then, it a sunrise over the black sea a few years ago.

After seeing a blog post with some fantastic examples of silhouette photography, I’m determined to think as much about form as I do about the details.

As soon as I started doing wedding photography properly, I realised how much pressure there is on the photographer to get the right shot, to be in the right place, and in general not trip over things and break things. To date, fortunately I’ve been successful, with the worse thing happening to me at a wedding being my mislaying of my main flash. The couple didn’t even notice I was using my backup. However, because the work that I do involves the public, I have public liability insurance to cover me against accidental damage to property, or attendees at the wedding.

What prompted me to write this post was actually a combination of an article about a reception venue ceiling collapsing on the wedding party, and my parents’ surprise at my brother taking out wedding insurance (he’s getting married next year). Is insurance worth it for the providers of wedding services? Is insurance worth it for the couples getting married?

I reckon that it’s definitely worth it for the providers of wedding services…especially those who, like me, are registered as sole traders. If I did cause harm to anything or anyone, aside from feeling mortified about ruining someone’s special day, all of my personal assets would be up for grabs should I be sued. Insurance provides that cushion, and with specialist insurers (I’m with Photoguard, they often give good deals that cover both public liability and equipment insurance. Professional indemnity insurance is something I shall consider adding in when it comes to renewing my policy; to cover myself if there is a dispute over work that I have produced for a couple, or to cover myself if I wipe a memory card of all photos of a wedding. I minimise the likelihood of the latter due to swapping memory cards a few times during each wedding day.

Is it worth it for couples getting married? I’m not so sure. It’s something that seems to have crept in as the price of weddings has increased over the years. Yes, there are many things that can potentially go wrong; suppliers going out of business, damage to wedding dress, loss of rings, illness etc, but some of these will be covered by the suppliers’ own insurance. Certainly the loss of photos is something that occurs as a line item on a lot of couples’ wedding insurance options.

I guess it all boils down to a question of risk and how you respond to it. I tend to be naturally risk-averse; doing all I can to mitigate things that could potentially go wrong. Hopefully this should be enough to mean that I never have to claim, but I know that if the worst happens, I’m covered. Will I get wedding insurance when I get married one day? Probably!