So what's it like having me as your wedding photographer?

A few days after I exhibited at a wedding fair I got a phone call asking me about my wedding photography. So one Saturday morning I drove over to meet Liz and Chris.

It turned out that they had been at the fair but didn't get to talk to me because I was chatting with someone else. They did, however, like my flyer that was in the goody bag and went to my website to check out my pictures.

So I had a cup of tea, showed them some wedding albums and just generally nattered about wedding related things. Then, for some random reason, we got into a discussion about Monty Python and Star Wars (both of which I really like) and stayed there for a while just laughing and joining in with old jokes about the knights who say 'ni'.

A few days later I got an email with the subject heading 'What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow' saying that they'd like me to be their wedding photographer.

I was really glad that they wanted me to be a part of their day and grabbed the opportunity with both hands (as well as giving the answer to their question – it's roughly 24mph).

Side note – in case you don't understand all the swallow nonsense, it's from the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

So everything was ready for a Spring wedding. Unfortunately due to a family illness the wedding needed to be moved up to November so, after a bit of diary juggling, I said that was fine and went ahead with my preparations. I make a point of visiting the wedding and reception venues prior to the big day to get a feel for them, take a few test shots and have a chat to the happy couple. I also do things like getting in touch with the priest, celebrant or registrar, researching sunrise and sunset times and planing routes.

As for the actual photographs, Liz and Chris decided that what they wanted was a set of formal groups outside the church and then just a more reportage feel for the rest; just generally capturing people having fun on the day. In the weeks on the run up to the wedding, there were regular e-mails between myself and Liz to keep me up to date on the changes in timings for the day and tweaks to the list of photographs that they wanted.

On the day of the wedding the batteries were charged, the lenses were clean, the shot list was printed out (twice) and my shirt was ironed. I set off feeling excited and everything was going great for at least ten minutes until I got a flat tyre. I called Liz to let her know what was happening, and then had the fun of standing in a layby changing my tyre while wearing a three piece suit (that can't have looked strange at all...).

Despite all that I was still at Liz's parents' house in plenty of time to take photographs of hair and makeup in progress and get all those little detail shots that are great to look back on.

From there it was a busy but very enjoyable day involving loads of laughing (mostly during an impromptu photo-session in the playground with a lot of the bridal party) and lots of bubbles from the back of the wedding car (seriously) and during the first dance.

A couple of weeks after the wedding I personally delivered the disk of just over 300 pictures and we started to go through them and discuss which ones were going into their Graphistudio album and they decided on the cover (which eventually changed) and the paper (which stayed the same throughout).

Side Note - Liz came up with the best description of metallic paper that I've ever heard. She said it was like seeing the pictures in HD. I know that sounds a bit weird but all the colours are richer, the contast is deeper and the photographs themselves just seem to have more depth.


Over the next few weeks pictures were swapped around, more pages were added, the colour of the cover was changed and we ended up with a great album.

As I usually do, I asked Liz and Chris if they'd give me a testimonial statement for my website, here's an extract:
'He was always happy to answer any questions we had and every time we met him he was friendly and doing whatever he could to help.' If you'd like to see he rest of it, my testimonials page is here.

How did the album turn out?
Well you can see the page designs and some photographs of the finished product RobG Photography album page.