Wedding Featured on Another Blog

As a photographer I love it when my work is seen by as many people as possible and I was delighted today to see that one of my weddings has been featured on the Whimsical Wonderland Weddings blog. It is an interesting read, in particular because it is purely from the bride and groom's perspectives rather than mine!

Here is a link to the article: http://www.whimsicalwonderlandweddings.com/2011/07/a-yellow-vintage-travel-themed-wedding-2.html

James and Laura's Wedding Photographs at Hotel du Vin, Glasgow

To continue the theme of 2011 my next June wedding was also in the rain. Although, to be fair, this was pretty impressive rain and I was pleased to have developed my 'taking photographs whilst holding an umbrella under one arm' skills to such a level by now that I could still dash out and take pictures whilst remaining fairly dry.

The day actually started very nearby to my house at the Houston and Killellan Kirk (unusually, for a church, it has a quite impressive website http://www.houstonkirk.org/) as Laura preferred me to begin there rather than taking photographs at her house (I hadn't written my persuasive blog post about this back then).

Laura arrived in a wonderful old Jaguar looking beautiful in her vintage-style dress and a lovely french veil (apologies for any fashion-description errors - I am a wedding photographer but I am still only a man after all) and made a dash for the church. I have met the Rev. Donald Campbell a few times and remembered that he had a very relaxed approach to photographers so I managed to get shots from both the front of the church, to capture a little of the anticipation, and also Laura walking up the aisle with her father, and then also from a point up in the gallery at the back of the church. As I have said many times before, remaining unobtrusive in the church is of paramount concern to me and being able to shoot from a spot hidden away like I did is very useful.

Unfortunately there wasn't really any opportunity for photographs outside the church so everybody  bundled back into the bus and made the short trip to Hotel du Vin (or One Devonshire Gardens as most people remember it) in the West end of Glasgow.

I have worked at One Devonshire many times in the past and I always look forward to returning there. If you are having a smaller wedding (about 50 - 70 guests) I think there are few better places in the city centre of Glasgow to have a wedding reception. It is run extremely well (something you notice more as a photographer) and offers a surprising amount of opportunities for photographs. Even in the rain we managed to shoot a few family pictures on the front steps - obviously if you wanted large groups of 10 people then this wouldn't have worked but, for us that day, it was ideal. If you are wondering why I didn't just shoot them indoors then it is just because of the light. I can, and on many occasions have, shot everything inside here but the groups have to be lit with a camera flash. This is perfectly fine, if a little trickier, but if you can get outside, even on an overcast day, the natural lighting is so much better.

The cutting of the cake is usually done the same way at One Devonshire (or Hotel du Vin...) and, I think, it is quite a good plan. The cake is placed at the top of the stairs during the day so that people can admire it and take pictures. This cake really was impressive and I am pretty sure I remember that the little fairy cakes were made by their friends (I'll try and get confirmation of this). Because of the placement of the cake I can usually get pretty good shots of the cake cutting - compare this to a lot of other venues who put the cake in front of a big window, fire exit or, horror of horrors, a mirror! After the cake is cut you can then very quickly do a group picture of all of the guests. They are already gathered around the bottom of the stairs so the hard work is done!

Shen and Calum's Wedding at Fingask Castle

Just a week after shooting a wedding at Fingask Castle I was back there again for another! As often happens, wedding venues pop up like busses. I can go months without visiting a certain venue and then I get to go twice in two weeks! From the moment I left home in Glasgow in the rain I knew that, compared to the last wedding, however, it was going to be rather wet and the sun failed to make an appearance all day. Usually this is just an 'Oh well, it is Scotland after all' minor irritation but I arrived at the castle to witness some major restructuring of the day as, unfortunately for Shen and Calum, the ceremony was due to be held outside and many of their plans for the day were based around this. The Long Gallery in the castle that was used instead, although certainly very lovely, clearly didn't offer quite as much room as the gardens in front of the castle!

After the quick reshuffle the stage was set for one of the most interesting ceremonies I have witnessed. To begin with there was a lovely ceremony by interfaith minister Caroline Cormack but then, after that part, there followed a Tibetan blessing performed by Dr Akong Tulku Rinpoche, founder of Samye Ling Monestary in Dumfrieshire and founder of Rokpa NGO who Shen works with.

As a photographer I am accustomed to slinking around in the shadows to photograph wedding ceremonies - I strongly believe that the way I photograph a wedding ceremony should have no impact on the proceedings and I always hope that nobody is even aware of my presence. This was, however, a trickier wedding to photograph. Shen and Calum were very keen for photographs but there was very little space and they had a beautiful, but large, archway of flowers to negotiate with the camera. Luckily the minister was very relaxed about the whole thing and I actually took the unusual step of grabbing a seat in the audience that gave me an excellent view. I then moved up to behind the archway to try and grab a few shots of the Buddist portion of the ceremony - not an easy job as Shen and Calum had their backs to the rest of the room. One thing I remember vividly was that the room was very warm and, unfortunately for me, in my haste I had chosen a place to stand that was directly next to a radiator...

After the ceremony, whilst the majority of the guests milled around in the rooms downstairs, we took advantage of a short break in the heavy rain to nip outside quickly with umbrellas for a few photographs of the bride and groom and then some simple family pictures.