The short version of this post is: congratulation to the happy couple! Enjoy your honeymoon and see you when you get back. The longer version follows…
A month ago I drove up to the midlands for a wedding where I had been asked to be the photographer. It’s not the first time that this has happened but it is the first time that I’ve been the “official” photographer and it’s also the first time where the wedding has been in a church, white dress, limo and all.
It may have been more formal but I was also more prepared. I asked a question on a StackExchange site. There were going to be more people, so I got a list of pictures that the bride and groom wanted in advance. Last time I didn’t have an external flash and ended up spending a lot of time in Photoshop fixing up the flaws. This time I hired a flash.
Or at least, that was the plan. I waited until noon for the flash (and a nice L-series lens that I thought I’d try out) but it didn’t turn up. The courier said they couldn’t make it because of the snow, but in the rest of the weekend I didn’t see any of the white stuff.
I ended up picking up a a flash at the local Jessops, which was an unexpected expense but it worked out in the end.
On the day things went pretty well. The Chauffeur had clearly done this a lot before and helped out for the pictures by the car. A helpful uncle corralled the troops, ticking off most of the pictures on my list pretty quickly. Which was great as it was… well, the middle of December and we were outside. Some of the smiles may actually be people shivering.
Looking back over the images I have mainly the expected problems: people blinking or looking in the wrong direction, some minor under or over exposure. I took plenty of pictures so, mostly, the blinking wasn’t a problem. And the technical issues were not significant as I shot in RAW and it’s possible to recover the best part of two stops of exposure in Aperture.
I did, however, miss a couple of important shots. The brides sister was under represented and four shots of the grooms family all came out badly. Disappointing but not the end of the world.
Ultimately it’s not me that needs to be happy with them though. As I write this I am about to send off the book of the wedding for printing. I hope the recipients are happy with it!