On Friday I had a great day in Richmond photographing the wedding of Clare + Pete. The weather, surprisingly, didn’t turn out to be much of an issue at all – there was heavy rain at times during the day, but none of them disrupted the plans. The ceremony was in the Octagon room of the Orleans House Gallery which was full of natural light even with the threatening clouds, the sun briefly shone for a few of the group photos outside, then the boat trip over the river to the reception venue of the Bingham Hotel was dry before the next downpour.

This being my first wedding for a while (I’ve stopped doing weddings as I prepare for my own), I was horrified to find out 3 days before the wedding that I had only got one camera film left, so it was a hasty scrabble to get some spares. It’s sad that getting black and white film is no longer as easy as walking into a high street shop. So that was the first minor mishap – the other one was that I found that the head of my monopod had a crack. Not wanting it to fail in the middle of the wedding I put it under a stress test (i.e. I shook it and twisted it a bit) and lo and behold it fell apart. Bit of a shame, but in the end I didn’t really need it anyway.

I’ve talked previously about the weight of the Nikon D700 and all of my other kit at weddings, so decided this time to weigh the kit that I carry at a wedding. 10 kilograms. That’s 2 DSLR bodies, 1 film SLR body, 5 lenses, 2 flashes, 16 AA batteries, 4 DSLR batteries plus a few odds and ends. Carrying that around with me means that weddings are basically a workout!

But back to the wedding and the photos – it was a great day and lovely to share it with Clare + Pete. Only 2 to go before my own!